Book._ 

OJEYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE WORKER AND WORK SERIES 

THE BEGINNERS' WORKER AND WORK. Frederica Beard 

THE PRIMARY WORKER AND WORK. Marion Thomas 

THE JUNIOR W^ORKER AND WORK. Josephine L. Baldwin 

LEADERS OF YOUTH (Intermediates and Seniors). Hugh H. Harris 

LEADERS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. Frank Wade Smith 

THE ADULT WORKER AND WORK. Wade Crawford Barclay 

THE SUPERINTENDENT. Frank L. Brown 

THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH. Eric M. North 

THE WORKER AND HIS BIBLE. 

Frederick C. Eiselen and Wade Crawford Barclay 



The Worker and Work Series 

HENRY H. MEYER, Editor 



THE WORKER 
AND HIS CHURCH 

ERIC M. NORTH 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



CONCERNING THIS MANUAL 



The Worker and Work Series, of which this is one of 
eight volumes, was originally planned for the use of Sun- 
day-school teachers and officers for reading and reference 
as working manuals, and for use as textbooks in the Cor- 
respondence Study Courses of the Board of Sunday Schools. 
In the revision of the series — a revision which has involved 
the rewriting of some of the books and the substitution of 
several new books for some which were originally a part of 
the series — this original design has been kept in view. In 
addition the writers have had in mind a wider constitu- 
ency — the interests and needs of all workers both in the 
church school and in other departments of the church who 
have the sincere desire to prepare themselves for effective 
service. 

As one of several items in a complete equipment it will 
readily be agreed that the efficient worker requires an intel- 
ligent comprehension of the historical development of 
Christianity, and of the genius and spirit, the polity and 
organization, and the growth of the particular branch of 
the Christian church within which he is called to serve. To 
supply in compact, convenient form the means by which 
this necessary knowledge may be gained is the purpose of 
The Worker and His Church. If is not designed to be in 
any sense a complete history, either of the development of 
Christianity or of the Methodist movement. The limitation 
of length, strictly prescribed in order that the books of the 
series might be small in size and sold at a low price, was 
prohibitive of any such purpose. Rather it is an introduc- 
tion to historical study. The worker who desires a thor- 
ough and exact knowledge of the history of Christianity 
and of Methodism should be inspired by this monograph to 
pursue his search for knowledge through the study of such 

7 



8 



CONCERNING THIS MANUAL 



books as are listed at the close of the various chapters 
under the head of Collateral Reading. 

As an introductory manual, it is believed that The 
Worker and His Church will be found to be in a marked 
degree satisfactory. The author, equipped for his task by 
thorough scholarship, by specialized study in church his- 
tory, and by experience in teaching the subject, has written 
in an interesting and luminous style. He has succeeded 
admirably in making the things of first importance stand 
out prominently, at the same time giving a connected ac- 
count of the rise and development of the- great movements 
of which he treats. The book will be found to be singularly 
free from unimportant details. A student is enabled to see 
the growth of Christianity and of Methodism in the large. 
A conscientious study of the book, we are assured, will 
prove to be an important means of aiding many Christian 
leaders and teachers to be workers that need not be 
ashamed, "holding a straight course in the Word ol 
Truth.*'— The Editor. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



Every Christian worker is interested in the church. He 
knows that it is due to the church more than to any other 
institution that he has come to know and to love Jesus 
Christ. He knows that the church is constantly working 
to bring the knowledge and love of God to men and to 
promote his kingdom throughout the world. He also knows 
that in it he often finds the very best place in which to do 
his own work for the advancement of the kingdom. He is 
himself a member of it. Because he is thus vitally con- 
cerned with the life of the church, this little book has been 
written to help him to understand how the Christian 
church came to be and just how it has developed through 
the nineteen centuries of its history. 

Since those who will study this book are Methodists, it 
has been planned to explain particularly the rise of the 
Methodists in England and America, and the present or- 
ganization and work of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
In doing so, however, we are, conscious that the Methodist 
Church is but a part of the universal church to which all 
Christians belong and we shall try to see just what the 
contribution of the Methodists has been to that church and 
how they can serve it best in the present day. 

We shall begin our study with a survey of the develop- 
ment of the church during the first seventeen centuries of 
its history. We shall then observe the rise of the Method- 
ist movement in England under the leadership of John 
Wesley, and trace out how, from small beginnings in the 
American colonies, it has grown into the great branches of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. Next we shall 
notice the important part played by Methodism in the 
history of the world-wide missionary movement and the 
extent of its present missionary work. Finally, we shall 
study more closely the present organization of the Method- 
ist Episcopal Church, the distinctive characteristics of 
Methodism, and its place in the work of the world church. 

9 



CHAPTER I 



THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 

It can hardly be said that the Christian Church was ever 
''founded." No group of men ever came together and said, 
"Let us form a church," nor did the earliest disciples seem 
to understand that Jesus meant them to start any religious 
organization separate and distinct from that of the Jews. 
Like most other institutions of great historical impor- 
tance, the church simply grew up under the guidance of 
God out of the fellowship of men of like interests and com- 
mon aspirations. Yet, as we look back upon it, we see how 
the purposes of God have been working themselves out in 
it through long centuries, as men inspired by the life of 
Christ and conscious of his saving power have joined to- 
gether to advance his kingdom. 

Jesus. As we read the Gospels we find Jesus proclaiming 
to his fellow countrymen the near approach — even the very 
presence — of the kingdom of God for which, in their op- 
pressed condition, they had been anxiously looking. But 
instead of describing it as an earthly kingdom of material 
prosperity Tie lays Ms greatest emphasis upon the spirit and 
life that men must have who are to inherit the kingdom. 
Only he that "doeth the will of my Father who is in 
heaven" may enter into his kingdom. Only those who 
minister even to the least of his brethren shall inherit 
the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of 
the world. 

Instead of revealing God as simply Creator, Guardian of 
the Jewish nation. Lawgiver, and Judge, he revealed him 
as before all else the loving Divine Father of his human 
children. In spite of the bitter hostility of the Pharisees, 
whose legalism and hypocrisy he denounced, and the in- 

11 



12 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



difference of the masses of the people, who having ears 
heard not, Jesus openly persisted in his teaching until 
his self-sacrificing life culminated in his death, in which 
he made plain before men the completeness of God's love 
for them. 

The Jewish disciples. His disciples, who had come to 
share his belief that he was the long foretold Messiah, or 
Christ, appointed to bring in the kingdom, were horrified 
by his death, for, in spite of his warning, they had not 
believed that the Messiah could die. But the assurance 
of his resurrection brought them new confidence and con- 
viction. They now held steadfastly to the hope that after 
his ascension he would soon return to "restore the king- 
dom to Israel," while they continued his work on earth, 
preparing men for the day when he should come. They 
did not, however, separate themselves from the Jewish 
worship or from the Jewish law, but continued as a loyal 
group of Jews, who nevertheless believed that the crucified 
Galilean was the Messiah. This was their central belief, 
this their message to their fellows. Though they carefully 
cherished Jesus' parables and sayings about God's father- 
hood and his love for his children, they laid more empha- 
sis upon Jesus' person as Messiah than on the message 
which he came to bring. 

Yet their life was not quite the same as that of the other 
Jews about them. They had a sense of fellowship that 
often brought them together as one household, uniting 
in prayer and in conversation about the things of the 
kingdom, sharing their possessions v/ith one another ''ac- 
cording as any one had need" and eating meals together, 
at which, from time to time, they commemorated Jesus' 
Last Supper with his disciples. 

The experience of the coming of the Spirit upon th^ 
at Pentecost set them actively at work spreading as mis- 
sionaries the good news of Jesus the Messiah. Before 
long persecution by the Jewish authorities, beginning with 
the stoning of Stephen, scattered them out from Jerusalem 



THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 13 



into the Jewish countryside, to the coast cities, to Samaria 
and Cyprus, and even as far north as Damascus and An- 
tioch. Yet wherever they went they preached their good 
news and many little communities of joyous believers in 
the gospel were soon started. Most of them were no 
doubt Jews, and those who were not were expected to be- 
come Jews and obey the Jewish law, if they were to have 
any part in the kingdom of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. 
For, as yet, the early Jewish Christians did not see that 
Jesus' message was universal and that the salvation which 
he brought to men was without national or racial limits. 

Paul. The first leader who really grasped the universal 
significance of Jesus and made that the foundation of a 
special mission to the Gentile world was Paul. Though a 
zealous Jew and a violent persecutor of the Christians, he 
had been deeply converted by the appearance of- the risen 
Christ to him on the road to Damascus. By this experience 
and by his reflection upon the meaning of Christ's death 
and resurrection, Paul became convinced that Jesus was 
not only Messiah, but also the Saviour of men. By the 
presence of his conquering Spirit in man the power of the 
fleshly nature is driven out, man is freed from sin and 
saved to eternal life. 

This presence of the Spirit seemed to Paul such a power 
for righteousness that conformity to the Jewish law was 
no longer necessary and he devoted the many years of his 
strenuous life to preaching the new gospel to the Gentiles. 
From time to time some of the Jewish Christians attacked 
his work and endeavored to undermine it because he did 
not require of his converts adherence to Jewish customs. 
But Paul vigorously resisted these attempts and the 
strength of Jewish Christianity gradually waned as the 
number of Gentile Christians increased. 

In Paul's letters and the book of the Acts of the Apostles 
we have a vivid record of his work. After an unsuccessful 
attempt at Damascus and a visit to Jerusalem, Paul began 
systematic evangelization in the Roman provinces of Syria 



14 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



and Cilicia, using, as a center, Antioch, where a church had 
already been started and where the disciples were first 
called "Christians.'' After eleven or more years of quiet 
activity in these provinces, preaching in synagogues, gath- 
ering converts and instructing them in the Christian life, 
Paul began to carry the gospel to other parts of Asia Minor 
and to the mainland of Europe, to the provinces of Galatia, 
Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia. As a result of his pioneering 
and of the enthusiasm which he aroused in others Chris- 
tianity gained a firm foothold in Asia Minor. 

Not only was Paul a great missionary, by preaching and 
exhortation building up communities of Christians and 
holding them fast to their new faith, b/ut through his let- 
ters he has remained a mighty influence in the church. 

The growing church. Paul and the early Jewish 
Christians were not, however, the only missionaries. In 
many of the little Christian congregations there were men 
who gave up their entire time to traveling from place to 
place, spreading the good news and encouraging the Chris- 
tians whom they found on their journeys. But the expan- 
sion of Christianity in the first two centuries was really 
due not so much to those who might be officially named 
"apostles'' as to the evangelistic fervor of the ordinary 
Christians. To their friends, to those who entered their 
shops, to those whom they met on their business trips, they 
told the story of the one God who created the world, who 
established the same moral law for all men, and who sent 
His Son to save men from their sins to an eternal life 
In the kingdom to come. 

We can name over forty cities in which by the end of 
the first century of our era there were Christians and there 
must have been at least as many more which we cannot 
name. Among these were such centers as Antioch, 
Smyrna, Ephesus, Corinth, Alexandria, and Rome, strate- 
gic points from which Christianity could expand along 
the great trade routes to every part of the Empire. 

In none of the cities was the number of Christians very 



THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 



15 



large and all the Christians in one city were still con- 
sidered as belonging to the same congregation. Usually a 
room in a private house served as the place of meeting. 
The older men of the congregation were its natural lead- 
ers and those who had gifts of prophecy or of teaching 
freely took part. The necessity of correcting the dis- 
orderly, of strengthening the weaker brethren, of col- 
lecting and distributing the alms, and of directing the 
worship of the congregation gradually led to the appoint- 
ment of fixed officers for these duties. At first various 
titles were used, but **episcopos," the Greek word meaning 
**overseer'* or "bishop," came into general use for the lead- 
ing ofiicers of each church. Before many years it was 
found wise to have but one bishop and several elders, or 
presbyters, associated with him. This practice, starting 
in Asia Minor about 110, became general in the Christian 
churches by 200. 

As yet, however, there was no general organization 
which ofiicially united and governed all these churches or 
any groups of them. But the strong bonds of common 
Christian faith held them together. They all thought of 
themselves as belonging to one fellowship, abiding in the 
Spirit of God until the day of Christ's coming. 

Collateral Reading 

TTie New Testament. 

Rail, H. F., New Testament History, 

McGiffert, A. C, The Apostolic Age, 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church, Period I. 

Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in%Christian History, Lessons 1-5. 

Cowan, H., Landmarks of Church History, Chapters I, II. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. What is meant by "founding of the Christian Church"? 

2. What was the message of Je^s? How did it contrast 
with the thought of the Jewish people? Read one of the 
Gospels with these questions in mind. 



16 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



3. In what respects are the life and activity of your local 
church like those of the earliest Jewish disciples? In what 
respects different? 

4. What experiences caused the church to spread beyond 
Jerusalem? Find the record of these in the book of Acts. 
Who were some of the persons who helped to spread the 
"good news"? 

5. State the message of Paul and illustrate your state- 
ment with passages from his letters. 

6. What features of the life of churches in the cities of 
the Roman Empire do you find in your church to-day? 
What features are lacking? 



CHAPTER II 



THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
100-500 A. D. 

In the first chapter we saw how Christianity spread in 
the first century among many of the towns of the Roman 
world. As time went on this expansion became more and 
more rapid. The varied population of the empire was 
deeply interested in religion. Men were seeking salvation. 
Other new religions sprang up, seeking to satisfy those who 
were dissatisfied with the old gods and who found no per- 
sonal comfort in the religion of the state. But Chris- 
tianity proved itself stronger than all, though in its 
conquest it borrowed from them many new elements for- 
eign to its earliest form. 

Popular opposition. The expansion of Christianity 
met with opposition from other quarters than those of its 
rivals. For some time it was regarded as an obscure Jew- 
ish sect; the neighbors of the Christians looked at them 
askance. They were clannish and exclusive. Their private 
meetings gave rise to malicious rumors about their mo- 
rality. Their opposition to idolatry drew down upon them 
the hatred of the trades dependent upon it. They were 
even regarded as atheists, for they had no temple and no 
image which they worshiped. Thus from time to time 
popular feeling would rise up in mobs against the Chris- 
tians, especially when some calamity such as an earthquake 
or a great fire had occurred, showing, so people thought, the 
anger of the gods at the impiety of the Christians. 

As the increasing numbers of the Christians brought 
them more into public notice, Jewish and pagan writers 
attacked them, some with satire and slander, others with 
arguments and charges of disloyalty to the state. The 

17 



18 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



replies of the Christian "apologists," as they were called, 
not only criticized searchingly the morality and beliefs 
of the pagan religions, but also helped the Christians to 
define their own faith. 

Persecution by tlie state. The severest opponent of 
Christianity, however, came to be the Roman state. The 
general policy of the empire was tolerant, but, as Chris- 
tianity appeared to be atheistic, and as the Christians re- 
fused to show their patriotism by sacrificing before the 
emperor's statue, it was declared a "prohibited religion." 
Upon refusal to recant the Christians were to be banished, 
deprived of rank, or put to death. Yet except for occasional 
repression in one province or another the government took 
no radical action for many years. Marcus Aurelius in 180, 
Septimus Severus about 210, and Maximinus in 235 each 
ordered more stringent measures, which, though they 
caused scattered persecutions, were not systematically en- 
forced. In the many years of peace which intervened the 
church grew rapidly. 

The climax of the struggle came in two general persecu- 
tions. In the first, in 250, Decius endeavored to force all 
Christians to perform the state religious ceremony. Many 
indeed did so, but thousands refused and paid the penalties. 
The unusual growth of the church in the four peaceful 
decades which followed justified Tertullian's terse phrase, 
"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." The 
final persecution, begun under Diocletian in 303, was the 
most violent and bloody of all. In the West its severity was 
lessened by the policy of Constantine, who saw the strength 
which the supj)ort of the Christians might bring to the 
empire, but in the East for eight years the horrors of 
torture, imprisonment, and death pursued the Christians. 
At last the emperors were forced to issue a limited edict 
of toleration, which was made complete by Constantine 
in 313. 

External prosperity as the state religion. The edict 
of Constantine ended the persecution of the Christians once 



THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE 19 



and for all. More than that, his policy of showing favor 
to the Christians brought new advantages to the church. 
He not only made Christianity legal as a religion, but gave 
it the right to hold property in its own name. He recog- 
nized the church and gave special rights to the clergy. He 
also showed it marked personal favor by generous con- 
tributions and by systematic efforts to settle controversies 
which arose within it. Constantine himself made no ef- 
forts to destroy paganism, but his successors at once began 
its suppression. The church that had been persecuted 
in turn became the persecutor. 

The final triumph of Christianity, however, was not yet 
reached. With the support of the aristocracy and the 
literary classes, the Emperor Julian endeavored to restore 
paganism to its former power, but the strength of Chris- 
tianity made his efforts futile and his successors even more 
vigorously continued the suppression of paganism. 

The final step in the victory of Christianity was its es- 
tablishment as the state religion under Theodosius in 380. 
Catholic Christianity was declared the law of the empire 
and the acceptance of the Nicene Creed was made necessary 
for citizenship. Still more vigorous measures, such as the 
destruction of temples and edicts against pagan sacrifice, 
were inaugurated and in many towns mobs of monks aided 
in carrying out the decrees. ' 

By its establishment Christianity had gained the protec- 
tion of the state, unrivaled prestige, and unusual wealth. 
Its gains, however, were not all to its advantage. It was 
now directly under the control of the state and always 
remained so in the East. Moreover, the influx of great 
numbers of unworthy and untried members lowered its 
ideals and standards and greatly hindered its spiritual 
life. The church seemed hardly to realize the magnificent 
opportunity to capture the world for Christ which its new 
position gave it and was quite unprepared to promote sys- 
tematically God's kingdom among men. 

Dissension within the churcli. One reason why the 



20 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



churcli was unprepared for this conquest was the growth of 
dissension within it. As men of different types of thought 
came into the church, they brought with them conflicting 
ideas about Christianity. Those opinions which the church 
rejected and condemned were called heresies. The first 
great heretical movement was that of Marcion (about 150) 
and of a group of philosophers called Gnostics. They as- 
serted that the God of the Old Testament was not the 
Christian God and that Christ being Divine could not really 
have died. The church objected to the thought of two Gods 
and to a denial of Christ's humanity and began to take 
measures to refute and then to exclude the heretics. 

This they did first by gradually forming the list, or 
**canon," of authoritative apostolic writings which we have 
in the New Testament. They then set up a standard state- 
ment of doctrine or "creed'' which explicitly affirmed the 
points which the Gnostics denied. This we have in part in 
the so-called "Apostles' Creed." Their final step was to 
assert that the apostles had committed to the bishops, as 
their appointed successors, the final authority to interpret 
Christian doctrine and the sole power to guarantee the 
orthodoxy of the interpretation. This was the beginning 
of the theory of "apostolic succession" still held by many 
churches. As a result of this process the church accepted 
Cyprian's word — as the Roman Catholic Church still does 
— that "outside of the church no one can be saved." 

The second great "heresy," Montanism, arose in the latter 
half of the second century. Though quite orthodox in be- 
lief, its leaders protested vigorously against the loss of 
the presence of the Spirit in the church and its growing 
worldliness. The church rejected Montanism because it 
regarded its excessive enthusiasm as out of date and be- 
cause it attacked the organization of the church at a time 
when that organization was needed to protect the church 
against Gnosticism. 

The setting up of a standard of doctrine was made of 
still more importance when the church began to try to 



THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE 21 

state its beliefs in terms of Greek philosophy. Two great 
streams of Christian experience came to a conflict here. 
The one endeavored to exalt Christ by identifying him 
with God; the other emphasized his human life as a great 
example for men. In spite of the efforts of Arius and his 
humanizing party, the Nicene Council in 325 adopted a 
creed that expressed the deity of Christ, though in phrases 
that many found unsatisfactory. A later council worked 
out a form that included both the human and the Divine 
aspects of the personality of Christ. Though this was 
finally accepted by most of the church, severaj provinces in 
the East broke off from the empire, and in them were 
formed what are now the Armenian, Coptic, and Abyssin- 
ian churches. Indeed, it was in the East that these con- 
troversies were most intense. Political aspirations and 
underhand methods of gaining party success provoked bit- 
terness and strife that greatly weakened the church. 

Only one theological controversy seriously disturbed the 
West — that of the contrasting views of man's sin and God's 
grace held by the great theologian, Augustine, on the one 
hand, and Pelagius, a British monk, on the other, early in 
the fifth century. 

Bishops and councils. In spite of the dissensions pro- 
duced by these doctrinal controversies, the church still 
believed in its fundamental unity, but this unity found 
expression not so much in the spirit of Christian fellowship, 
which had marked the primitive church, as in the power 
given to the bishops as a class and in the development of 
even more centralized organization. Gradually the bishop 
of the chief town in a province came to hold a rank 
higher than that of the other bishops, settling disputes 
between them and summoning the provincial synods. 

Soon the bishops of great metropolitan centers gained 
authority over a number of provinces and finally the 
bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria 
were recognized as the heads of the church. Similarly, gen- 
eral councils, supposed to represent the entire church, came 



22 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



to have authority over the provincial synods and in the 
church as a whole, though the Bishop of Rome often re- 
fused to recognize the decision of the Eastern councils- 

Collateral Reading 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church, Periods II 
and III. 

Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in Christian History, Lessons 6-9. 
Cowan, H., Landmarks of Church History, Chapters III 
and IV. 

QrE??Tioxs FOR Thought xVxd Discussion 

1. What are the differences between the attitude toward 
Christians taken by people in the second and third cen- 
turies and that taken now? 

2. In w^hat respects does the treatment of Christians by 
modern governments differ from that by the Roman Em- 
perors? How do you account for the difference? 

3. Do you think the church fulfilled its Christlike mis- 
sion better under persecution or prosperity? What was 
the effect of the latter? 

4. What measures were taken to exclude heresy from the 
church? 

5. Trace the rise of the bishops from New Testament 
times to the rise of the papacy. 



CHAPTER III 



THE RISE OF THE PAPACY AND THE CONVERSION 
OP THE BARBARIANS 

The change in the sacraments. While Cliristianity was 
expanding and becoming more highly organized, its services 
of worship were greatly changed, in part by the influence of 
pagan religious ideas. The freedom and spontaneity of 
the worship described in PauFs letters, in which the Chris- 
tians expressed themselves as the Spirit moved them, had 
to yield to more formality for the sake of orderliness. More 
than that, the very meaning and character of the services 
changed. The singing of psalms and hymns, the offering 
of prayer, and the preaching were still parts of the services. 

But the central feature — and in a sense the center of the 
life of the church — was the solemn sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. No longer was it the common meal shared in re- 
membrance of Christ by all the fellowship present, but a 
ceremonial rite — in theory a repetition of Christ's sacrifice 
upon the cross — performed by the clergy with the congre- 
gation as spectators. Only by sharing in the mysterious 
benefits of this great propitiatory sacrifice, when performed 
by a priest who had been ordained by a bishop in the apos- 
tolic succession, could the believer be saved. 

Similarly, baptism, instead of remaining a symbol of the 
baptized person's renunciation of his sins and of his entrance 
into the community of the followers of Jesus, became, in 
the thought of the church, the actual process by which sins 
were blotted out. This led to the postponement of bap- 
tism to some time late in life, until a new sacrament 
called penance appeared, which consisted of the perform- 
ance of pious acts — prayers, fastings, pilgrimages — at the 
direction of the priests, as punishments for sin. 

23 



24 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Monasticism. With the complicated church organization 

and the sense of the peculiar sacredness of the services 
came the feeling that those responsible for them — the officers 
of the church — should be set apart as holier than the rest 
of the Christians. They were not to marry nor to engage 
in secular or worldly callings, but to be devoted solely to 
the work of the church. Through them alone could sal- 
vation come to the people. No matter how faithful a fol- 
lower of Christ one of the laity might be, he could not be 
as holy as a priest. 

A somewhat similar class of sacred persons grew up in 
reaction against the increasing worldliness of the church. 
Stirred by iheir ideals to renounce worldly living, and 
finding it increasingly difficult to live a Christian life in 
the church and in society, many men sought the wilder- 
nesses and lived apart in meditation and solitude. In the 
middle of the fourth and early in the fifth century several 
leaders, of whom Benedict was the most famous (529), 
gathered such men as these into communities or monas- 
teries under the threefold vow of eternal chastity, poverty, 
and obedience. 

As time went on, these monastic orders^ came to play a 
very influential part in the life of the church and society, 
for they fostered scholastic learning and many of the 
practical arts in the centuries when the decay of civiliza- 
tion in Europe was marked. They also made much of 
ministry to the poor. Many of the orders became im- 
mensely wealthy and powerful. Some of the most famous 
leaders of the church — scholars, theologians. Popes, mis- 
sionaries — came from the monasteries. 

The rise of the papacy. In western Europe, where 
monasticism had its greatest development, the church 
became the most extensive and powerful single organiza- 
tion. The center of this organization was Rome. Here, 

1 An "order" in this sense consists of aU the monks living under the same 
set of rules in various monasteries and usually traces its origin to an individual 
founder. 



THE PAPACY AND THE BARBARIANS 25 



in the greatest city of the Roman Empire, had grown up 
the largest community of Christians. The practical- 
minded bishops of this church, being without rivals in the 
west, began early to extend their authority. By the end 
of the fourth century Rome was given priority of honor 
over the other metropolitan centers. A few years later 
a bishop of Rome, Innocent I, asserted that all the western 
bishops and synods were subject to his executive and ju- 
dicial authority. A little later Leo the Great (440-461) de- 
clared that the grace of salvation came to the bishops and 
thus to the church only through the Bishop of Rome, the 
successor of the chief of the apostles. These claims might 
have come to nought, had it not been that many of the 
Bishops of Rome, or Popes, as they have come to be called, 
were men of great ability and skill, losing no opportunity 
of making the practice of the church conform to their 
claims and of extending their prestige in secular as well 
as in church affairs. 

The coming of the Barbarians. While the church was 
thus developing, conditions in the empire were changing in 
a way which vitally affected the life and work of the 
church. For many generations the tribes on the northern 
and northeastern borders of the empire, living in what 
are now the Balkans, Hungary, and France, had been drift- 
ing into th<? empire. But late in the fourth century hordes 
of Asiatics, driven by famine, began to press into Europe 
and push the ''barbarians" of Central and Eastern Europe 
down upon the empire. In the conflicts between the in- 
vaders and the invaded the old political unity of the empire 
was badly shaken and finally broken. For a time the Pope 
at Rome stood as the sole representative of the political 
greatness of the empire. 

These new peoples seem to have stirred afresh the mis- 
sionary zeal of the church. Some of the tribes which 
settled in Italy had earlier been converted to the Chris- 
tianity of Arius by missionaries, notably Ulfilas (c. 350), 
from Constantinople. The Christians of Italy under the 



26 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



leadership of Rome began the task of leading these "here- 
tics" into the form of faith held in Rome, called the "Catho- 
lic" faith, a task which was the less difficult because the 
Christianization of these tribes had not taken very deep 
root. 

In this they were aided by the rise of a ne^v kingdom 
in what is now France, that of the Franks, whose bar- 
barian leader, Clovis, having won a battle after prayer to 
the God of his Catholic wife, had himself baptized with 
his entire army (496). He then proceeded, by the might 
of his sword, to compel his neighbors to become Catholic 
Christians and incidentally to join their lands to his 
kingdom! By this process was built up a kingdom extend- 
ing, under Clovis's successors, over nearly all of France, 
Belgium, Netherlands, southwestern Germany, and west- 
ern Bavaria, nominally, at least, related to Roman Chris- 
tianity and traversed by its emissaries. 

Missionary activity. Not all the conquests of the 
church at this time were won by the swords of ambitious 
princes. The traveling traders and soldiers of the earliest 
Christian centuries had planted Christianity in Britain 
and it had remained there even after Britain had ceased to 
be a part of the Roman empire. From these British Chris- 
tians Christianity spread to Ireland, and an Irish monk, Co- 
lumba (b. 521), in the latter half of the sixth century 
carried it to Scotland. 

Meanwhile Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) sent a band 
of monks under Augustine to fulfill his own earlier am- 
bition to be a missionary to the "Angles," or English. 
After some years of conflict the followers of Columba's 
mission accepted the authority of the Pope. The mission- 
ary energy thus centering in the British Isles soon ex- 
panded to the continent through the missionary labors of 
Columbanus (b. 543) and Willibrod (658-739) and many 
other British monks, not all of whom, however, promoted 
the customs and organizations of Rome. 

It remained for another Anglo-Saxon monk, Boniface 



THE PAPACY AND THE BARBARIANS 27 



(672-755), to bring the gradually developing Christianity 
of northern Europe into line with the authority of the 
Bishop of Rome. Boniface was tireless in his efforts in 
behalf of the church, redistricting old episcopal areas or 
setting up new, deposing immoral or insubordinate priests 
and bishops, establishing the Roman usages, enforcing 
monastic discipline, holding synods, and rooting out heathen 
customs. 

The result of the labors of Boniface, continued by many 
others until the twelfth century, when the Prussians at 
last gave up their resistance to political and ecclesiastical 
pressure and were baptized, was a church in which the 
Roman church regulations were authoritative and which 
was beginning to bring to the rude, but sturdy, barbarians 
the moral discipline of its religious authority and the 
educational influences of as much of the old Roman civil- 
ization as the church contained. But the contrast between 
the nominal Christianity of the masses of church members 
in this period and the moral and spiritual earnestness of the 
church in apostolic days was very great indeed. 

Islam; the Greek Catholic Church. This expansion of 
the church into northern Europe was partly offset by. the 
rise of a new religion and by a break between eastern and 
western Christianity. The new religion was Islam, the 
faith of the followers of Mohammed (570-632), an Arab 
prophet. By migration and conquest this new religion 
swept, in scarcely more than a century, from Arabia west- 
ward across all northern Africa and up across Spain to 
southern France, where it was stopped in the Battle of 
Tours (732), and eastward into Syria and Persia. In its 
advance it crushed out the Christian churches. Seven 
centuries later the Mohammedan Turks captured Constan- 
tinople (1453), and threatened Europe on the east. From 
that time Islam has remained the most active rival of 
Christianity, expanding, as it has, into India and Malaysia 
and somewhat into China, and now moving southward into 
Central Africa. 



28 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



While the followers of Mohammed were consolidating 
their gains, conflicts of authority were going on between 
eastern Christianity, with its center at Constantinople, and 
the Bishop of Rome. In 1054 the break was final and the 
Eastern Church, which became known as the Greek Catholic 
Church, has developed separately from the Roman Catho- 
lic Church of the West, becoming in time the great State 
Church of the Russian Empire and having branches in 
other countries of eastern Europe. 

Collateral Reading 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church — 
Period III, Chapters II and HI; 
Period IV, Chapter I. 
Period V, Chapter I. 
Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in Christian History, Lessons 9-12. 
Robinson and Breasted, Outlines of European History, Vol. 

I, Chapter XIV. 
Cowan, H., Landmarks of Church History, Chapters VII 
and XII. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. What parts of modern church services were in the 
services of the early church? Trace in the service for the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper in your church those parts 
which come from the New Testament and those which 
appear to be later. 

2. Why should men want to become monks? What 
services did the monks render to the church and to the 
world? 

3. How did there come to be Popes? 

4. Who were the "barbarians"? How were they won for 
Christianity? Who were some of the leading missionaries? 

5. With what new religion did Christianity come into 
conflict in the seventh and eighth centuries? What lands 
were lost to it? 



CHAPTER IV 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH AT ITS HEIGHT 

DuRiXG the centuries in which the church was trying to 
assimilate the new converts of northern Europe, the ad- 
ministration at Rome came for many years at a time into 
the hands of weak or unprincipled Popes, and was even 
the tool of ambitious political families in Italy. Reforming 
movements appeared from two directions to rescue the 
church from this condition of affairs. One was the ac- 
tivity of the more pow^erful princes of the Frankish king- 
dom, such as Charlemagne (768-814) and the Ottos and 
Henry III (1039-1056), who did much to disentangle the 
selection of the Pope from local politics and to uproot graft 
and corruption in the church, although they themselves did 
not hesitate to exercise authority over it. 

Increase in the power of Rome. The second correcting 
influence came from within the church and originated in a 
reform of monastic life, begun by the monks of Cluny. 
Under the leadership of able men, of w^hom the most notable 
was Hiidebrand, a monk of Cluny, the marriage of priests, 
the purchase of ecclesiastical positions, and the appoint- 
ment of men to these positions by secular princes were 
vigorously attacked. It involved still further the develop- 
ment of complete control over all the churches by the cen- 
tral administration at Rome, a condition which had never 
been attained except in a very loose way, and also the in- 
dependence of the church from all control by secular rulers, 
if not even its supremacy over them. 

These very claims were asserted and, to a remarkable 
degree, accomplished by the masterful will of Hiidebrand, 
who became Pope under the title of Gregory VII (1073- 
1085). The election of the Pope was put into the hands of 
the cardinals (the heads of the chief churches in Rome), 

29 



30 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



and thus out of the hands of the political magnates. The 
celibacy of the clergy was enforced, depriving them of any 
motive of handing down their estates to posterity, instead 
of bequeathing them to the church. After long and bitter 
conflicts with the secular rulers, involving at one time the 
complete humiliation of the emperor before the Pope, an 
agreement was reached that ecclesiastical positions, which 
had quite generally been filled by appointees of the wealthy 
or ruling patron, should be filled by the church, with a 
possible veto by the secular ruler. This meant that the 
great estates and properties, the endowments of churches 
and monasteries given to them by devoted laymen, were 
no longer under the jurisdiction of the ruler within whose 
lands they lay, but were under more or less complete con- 
trol of the church. The church had become a great inter- 
national landed proprietor and the Pope a sovereign. 

The authority of the Pope over secular rulers. But 
this was not all. Gregory not only succeeded in centraliz- 
ing the control of the church and its properties within the 
church. He asserted that all secular rulers held their 
kingdoms and principalities only from him as his subjects. 
He reminded them that he was the vicar of Saint Peter, 
to whom Christ committed the care of all the Christian 
flock and that they must acknowledge his authority. He 
warned William the Conqueror of England to yield to him 
"unconditional obedience" on Ihe peril of his soul, excom- 
municated or cast out of the church princes who did not 
acknowledge his authority, and absolved subjects from 
obedience to rulers with whom he was in conflict. 

Gregory himself did not realize upon all these claims, but 
under Innocent III, who was Pope from 1198 to 1216, the 
papacy reached the zenith of its actual power. He made 
numerous assignments of kingdoms to princes, forced the 
king of Aragon in Spain to come to Rome to be crowned, 
decided between Otto IV and Philip of Swabia as em- 
peror, forced King John of England, who had threatened 
to banish the clergy, to surrender his lands to the Pope 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 



31 



and receive them back as a "fief" or holding from the Pope, 
compelled Philip of France to take back his divorced wife, 
and exercised his power in many small affairs. In 1215 
he held the great Lateran Council of more than fifteen 
hundred prelates and abbots, who, instead of legislating for 
the church, listened to the reading of the decrees of the 
Pope, who proclaimed himself the Vicar of God and, by his 
succession from Peter, the ruler not only of the church, but 
of the whole world. 

The duties of the Pope and the bishops. The church 
over which the Pope proclaimed his sovereignty, was at 
this period, the thirteenth century, the most powerful in- 
stitution in Europe. Everybody, except Jews and Moham- 
medans, was a member of it, just as men are to-day citizens 
of the state. It was supported by tax upon its members, by 
the income of its great estates, and by the gifts of the 
people. 

The Pope was the supreme governor of it and to him, 
either directly or through their superiors, all the clergy, 
priests, and monks were responsible. It was he who con- 
firmed the election of bishops and archbishops and abbots, 
who was the court of final appeal in ecclesiastical cases 
from all over western Europe, and who by his decrees de- 
termined the laws of the church. The details of the central 
administration in Rome were handled by the Curia, or ad- 
ministrative office, which also collected all fees for deciding 
of suits and confirming appointments, a half-year's income 
from each vacancy filled by the Pope, and the revenues 
from the "States of the Church," over which the Pope was 
direct political ruler. 
In each of the ecclesiastical areas into which Europe was 
i subdivided an archbishop was in charge, and under him 
were the bishops, who were the administrators of the 
, church's affairs in still smaller areas. Their duties were 
j to ordain the clergy, confirm baptized persons, supervise 
all the clergy, administer the episcopal income and the 
property of the churches, advise the political rulers, and 



32 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



try cases. Many of them were very influential in affairs 
of state as well as church, and, in order to watch them as 
well as to represent him in the courts of princes, the Pope 
had his personal representatives or legates in many parts 
of Europe. 

The work of the parish clergy. The real work of 
ministering to the people was carried on by the parish 
clergy, who were supported by the tithes paid by the people 
and by the income from the parish lands. They adminis- 
tered the sacraments — particularly the mass (the Lord's 
Supper) — upon which the eternal salvation of the people 
depended, and it was through the general belief that men 
could be saved only through these sacraments that the 
church held its power over the rulers and the people. 
When King Philip refused to take back his divorced wife 
or King John to yield to the Pope, the latter laid upon 
their kingdoms the interdict, prohibiting the clergy from 
administering the sacraments and thus putting the in- 
habitants of these kingdoms in peril of their salvation. The 
influence of the parish clergy was also exercised in the 
requirement of the private confession of sins and in the 
fixing of penances by the priests when conferring absolu- 
tion (declaring the forgiveness of the sins confessed) and 
thus freedom from eternal punishment. The mass was for 
the benefit of all the people, but was frequently said pri- 
vately, for the benefit of the dead, the expense sometimes 
being met by endowments. 

It was also within or in connection with the church that 
the culture and learning of the time was to be found. The 
Popes and archbishops were patrons of the arts of painting 
and sculpture and architecture. In this period the mar- 
velous Gothic cathedrals of Europe began to rise. New in- 
terest was shown in scholastic pursuits and the study of 
law. The Crusades, unsuccessful, though romantic at- 
tempts to wrest the Holy City, Jerusalem, from the control 
of the infidel Mohammedans, brought new contact with the 
learning which the Arabs had preserved. 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 



33 



New monastic and begging orders, particularly the Fran- 
ciscan and Dominican orders, arose as expressions of par- 
ticular types of piety or particular ways of serving the 
church. The founder of the great Franciscan Order, Francis 
of Assisi, is one of the shining examples of the many de- 
voted Christians who, filled with the spirit of love and zeal 
for their Master, took on themselves vows of poverty and 
self-sacrificing service to the poorest and the basest. 

The decline of the Pope*s political power. In spite 
of the degree to which the church made itself felt in all 
parts of its dominion, its supremacy in the political sphere 
was not long maintained. The Popes had been able to 
exercise their authority only by adding to their spiritual 
prerogatives skill in playing off the interests of one ruler 
against another. But an increasing unity of national 
feeling and increasing centralization of governmental or- 
ganization gave the political rulers better footing from 
which to resist the control of the Pope. Men were becoming 
exasperated by the financial exactions of the papacy, and 
were feeling new stirrings of self-reliance and independence, 
with the increase of commerce and the extension of 
learning. 

At the end of the thirteenth century both Edward I of 
England and Philip IV of France laid taxes upon the clergy 
to pay for their wars with each other. The Pope, Boniface 
VIII (1294-1303), without the skill of Hildebrand or Inno- 
cent m, tried to forbid it, but in each case the recently 
established Parliaments, representing, as far as any assem- 
blies did, the popular opinion, declared that the king's 
rights were not for the Pope to interfere with. A little 
later Philip secured the election of a French Pope and 
moved the papal court to Avignon, in France (1309-1376), 
where it remained under his thumb in weakness and lujx- 
ury, with great loss of prestige. This so-called *'Babylonign 
Captivity" in Avignon was followed by a period in which 
there were two and sometimes three Popes at once, one 
supported by France, the others by Italy and Germany. 



34 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



In this impossible situation a movement to take the 
control of the church out of the hands of the Popes appeared 
in the holding of three great councils at Pisa, Constance, 
and Basle in the early years of the fifteenth century. 
Although succeeding in getting rid of the superfluous Popes' 
and asserting ihe supremacy of the Councils over the papal 
ofiice, the Councils did not make permanent their control. 
The Pope was soon in a position to repudiate the action of 
the Councils and again to seek for political and ecclesiasti- 
cal domination, in so far as the changing conditions in 
Europe would permit. 

Collateral Readixg 

Fisher, G. P., History of Christianity — 

Period V, Chapter II. 

Period VI, Chapters I to III, VI. 

Period VII, Chapters I to III. 
Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in Christian History, Lessons 
13, 14. 

Robinson and Breasted, Outlines of European History, 

Vol. I, Chapters XVIII, XIX, XX. 
Cowan, H., Landmarks of Church History, Chapters 

XIII to XXI. 

Questions for Thought a^'d Discussion 

1. What forces attempted the reform of the church in 
the early Middle Ages, and how did they go about it? 

2. What was the position of the church, at the height of 
its power, in relation to secular governments? Why, in 
your thought, could not this position be maintained? 

3. Outline the duties of the bishops and pastors of your 
church and compare them with the duties of the bishops 
and priests of the Middle Ages. What differences of position 
do you find? 

4. What aspects of art were notably developed under the 
patronage of the church in the middle ages? 

5. Trace the decline of the church's political power. 



CHAPTER V 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 

Reformers before the Reformation. Not all the 

symptoms of disagreement with the church were to be 
found in political affairs. All through the Middle Ages 
there had been small bodies of folks who had sought to 
gain and express their religious experience outside the 
church and who had been persecuted by the church as 
heretics. 

More significant were the movements started by John, 
Wyclif in England and John Hus in Bohemia. Wyclif 
(1324-1384) was an English scholar, who yearned for a 
church that would consider its duty ministry and not 
mastery. Despairing of the reform of the papacy, he be- 
gan to attack the Papal Church in his writings and to send 
out poor pious men to preach to the people. He also trans- 
lated the Bible from the Latin of the church into the 
English of common speech. Although opposed by the king 
and by most of the clergy, his followers, known as Lollards, 
infused into the common people for years a new spirit of 
evangelical devotion and independence. 

Through Bohemian students at Oxford the knowledge 
of Wyclif's work was carried to Bohemia. Here John Hus 
(1369-1415), a university scholar, began to preach doctrine 
much like that of Wyclif. Hus was supported by the inde- 
pendent nobles and gained many followers. After his trial 
and burning as a heretic, the Hussite nobles broke with 
the king and maintained their independence. Although 
a compromise on some of the doctrinal questions was 
reached, the spirit of independence and of evangelical piety 
has always been a mark of Bohemia. 

The religious experience of Luther. The great break 
in the unity of the church of the Middle Ages and the 

35 



36 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



beginning of the Protestant denominations were the result 
of many causes, such as dissatisfaction with the papal 
court and its exactions, the grievances of the peasants 
against the land-owning clergy, the independent spirit in 
the literature of the time, the growing sense of nationality, 
and the increasing number of men who were thinking for 
themselves in religious matters. 

The leader of it, however, was not a prince or arch- 
bishop, but a young monk, Martin Luther (1483-1546), a 
teacher in a small university in Germany. In spite of 
unusual devotion to the precepts of the church and to the 
ascetic practices and penances which it urged, he had 
come to feel that he was still an unsaved man and that his 
own acts of piety would never earn his salvation. During 
deep meditation and study of the Bible he came to a great 
conviction of the truth of PauFs word, "The just shall 
live by faith" (Romans 1. 17). Salvation, he discovered, 
was the free gift of God to those who put their trust in 
Him, and could not be earned. 

This inevitably meant that the approach of a man to 
God was not through the agency of priests, but direct, that 
salvation was not dependent on the doing of penances or on 
the priestly repetition of a sacred and mystical ritual, nor 
even on membership in the church. Though Luther did 
not at first realize it, these conclusions meant the denial 
of the authority of the mediaeval church and its great 
claims to divine power. 

The clash with the papacy. The issue was first raised 
by Luther's famous posting of the "Ninety-five Theses," or 
subjects for class discussion, on the door of the University 
Church at Wittenberg, October 31, 1517. These theses 
criticized a sale of indulgences promoted in Germany under 
the 'high patronage of the Archbishop of Mainz and the 
Pope. Their immediate effect was to hinder the sale of 
indulgences and thus to attract the attention and opposition 
of the church authorities. Luther replied to his opponents 
by issuing brief pamphlets explaining his position. These 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 



37 



and the theses, reproduced in large numbers by the com- 
paratively new invention of printing, were spread far and 
wide, and in a short time Luther found himself the cham- 
pion of an awakened Germany, seeking freedom from the 
papal (and therefore Italian) control. At first he supposed 
that the Pope would support his efforts, but he very 
quickly discovered that his recantation or his death as a 
heretic was being sought. 

In 1520, after further study, he issued three great, chal- 
lenging pamphlets — ''Address to the Christian Nobility," 
"The Babylonian Captivity of the Church," "The Freedom 
of a Christian Man" — which at once brought down on him 
the ban of the Pope, declaring him and all his followers 
heretics. To this Luther replied by burning a copy of the 
ban on a public bonfire. Fortunately, the independent Ger- 
man princes then began to take Luther's side and were 
strong enough to resist the efforts of the church authorities 
and to hold off the emperor, who, though supporting the 
Pope's side, was anxious to avoid trouble with them. Under 
the protection of the princes Luther was publicly examined 
at the Diet of Worms in 1521, but refused to recant. While 
in hiding for a year in the castle of a friend, he continued 
his studies and translated the Bible into German. 

The reform of tlie churches. The first definite effect 
of the new religious zeal and sense of freedom upon the, 
life and worship of the church came in Wittenberg. Here 
enthusiastic followers of Luther began to "reform" the 
churches by removing saints' images, changing the mass to 
a communion service, urging monks and nuns to marry 
and initiating other radical reforms. All sorts of wild 
proposals were made, partly under the influence of the 
"revelations" of visiting "prophets" from Zwickau, and 
discredit threatened the entire movement. But Luther 
came out of hiding and by laying down the principle that 
the Bible, and not "revelations," must be the standard and 
guide and by his own influence restored the orderly 
progress of the reform. Stimulated by his example, many 



38 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH | 

lesser leaders initiated similar reforms with ttie approval 
or acquiescence of the more powerful nobility in a number 
of the states and principalities and in several of the inde■^ 
pendent cities. 

The most distinctive changes were the shift from Latin 
to German in the language of the services, the new empha- 
sis on preaching, communion of the laity with both bread 
and wine, the independent right of each Christian com- 
munity to select its own minister, and the abandonment of 
compulsory confession, of confirmation, of extreme unction, 
of private masses and of the idea of a repeated sacrifice as 
essential in the Lord's Supper. 

The "Protestants." As this movement continued, Ger- 
many became divided into two opposing camps with the 
Catholic princes on one side and the reforming princes on 
the other. After one of the Imperial Diets (Speyer, 1529) 
six of the reforming princes and fourteen free cities drew 
up a ^'protest" against a severe anti-reformation ordinance 
of the emperor. From this the name "Protestant" was 
derived. But neither the efforts of the emperor to induce 
the Protestants to change their stand nor the mild form of 
statement of Protestant religious convictions, drawn up 
by Melanchthon, a scholarly young disciple of Luther, and 
known as the Augsburg Confession (1530), could bring any 
unity. The "Reformation" had gone too far. Compromise 
could not be made. The emperor threatened force. After 
much dissension and several brief periods of warfare the 
Treaty of Augsburg (1555) settled the principle that the 
religion of any district was to be the religion of its 
ruler, so long as it was either Lutheran (Augsburg Con- 
fession) or Catholic. 

The Zwinglian Reformation. Thus the first great 
breach w^as made in the Catholic Church of the Middle 
Ages. But it was not in Germany alone that the effect of 
the new spirit of independence w^as felt. Other men besides 
Luther had been studying and thinking, and, stirred by. 
the news of Luther's boldness, they began to act. 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 



39 



In the German portions of Switzerland Huldreich Zvvingli 
(1484-1531), chief preacher at Ziirich, urged such reforms 
as the marriage of the clergj^ abolition of the sacrifice of 
the mass, removal of the images from the churches, and 
the dissolution of the monasteries, all of which the city 
council approved. In other cities similar changes w^ere 
made after much public agitation, but, as in Germany, 
Catholic opposition was aroused and Zwingli was killed 
in battle between the Catholic and ''Reformed" cantons. 
It is from this reformation that most of the so-called ''Re- 
formed Churches" in the United States and in Germany 
and Switzerland have descended. 

Collateral Readixg 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Clnirch — 
Period VII, Chapter IV. 
Period VIII, Chapters I and II. 
Lindsay, T. M., A History of the Reformation, Vol. I. 
Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in Christian History, Lesson 18. 
Robinson and Breasted, Outlines of European History, 

Vol. I, Chapter XXIV. 
Cowan, H., Landmarks of Church History, Chapters 
XXII to XXIV. 

Questions for Thought axd Discussion 

1. Who were the "reformers before the Reformation" and 
in what lands did they work? 

2. What was the religious experience of Luther? How 
did he come to clash with the papacy? 

3. How were the churches "reformed"? What changes 
were made? 

4. W^hat is the origin of the term "Protestant"? Upon 
what principle was peace between Catholic and Protestant 
princes brought about? Do modern governments observe 
this principle? 

5. What was the Zwinglian Reformation, and what pres- 
ent day churches owe their origin to it? 



CHAPTER VI 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 
(Concluded) 

John Calvin. More influential than Zwingli and nearly 
as influential as Luther was John Calvin (1509-1564), the 
leader of the' reformation in French Switzerland and 
France. Educated in law and theology, independent in his 
thinking, and seeking a religious satisfaction which he did 
not find in the Catholic Church, he had been attracted 
and influenced by the religious ideals of the reformers in 
Germany. The circumstances of his decision are unknown, 
but before he was twenty-seven he had written one of the 
most influential books in all Christian history. Institutes 
of the CTiristian Religion. 

In it he laid great emphasis on God as a Ruler who or- 
dains the salvation or damnation of every man for His 
glory.^ Obedience to God's will, revealed in the literally 
authoritative Bible as law, is the duty of all men, yet only 
that limited number whom God has "elected" to save will 
be saved, since for them only Christ died. The church, in 
Calvin's thought, guided by the Bible, was to train and dis- 
cipline the elect, the state to enforce its decrees. The con- 
trast of "Calvinism," as the system came to be called, with 
Catholicism lay chiefly in setting up the Bible in place of 
the tradition of the church as the supreme authority 
and in the more democratic church organization it fos- 
tered. 

Reform in Geneva. The scene of Calvin's greatest ac- 
tivity, however, was the city of Geneva, in French-speaking 
Switzerland, to which Farel, a reformer who was following 
in the footsteps of Zwingli, invited him (1536) to assist 



1 In contrast to Luther's emphasis on God's fatherly love for the sinner. 

40 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 



41 



in maintaining the Reformation. Here he became the domi- 
nant power in the city, writing its civil and church laws 
and enforcing them in a spirit of rigid intolerance that 
resulted in many executions and banishments, not only on 
criminal grounds, but also on grounds of heretical belief. 
Nevertheless, Geneva gained the reputation of being the 
most orderly city in Europe, and thousands of Protestant 
refugees from France flocked to it for safety. Moreover, 
from this "citadel of the Reformation" went out scores 
of earnest young men, trained under Calvin's direction, to 
preach and spread the Reformation in France. 

The Reformation in France. In France the rapid cir- 
culation of Luther's w^ritings stirred the hearts of many, 
and the hostile attitude of the government only fanned the 
flame. From 1523 on there were successive periods of per- 
secution and tolerance. In 1545 more than a score of vil- 
lages were destroyed for their Protestant sympathies, and 
extensive and severe measures for uprooting the adherents 
of the new belief were put into effect. This only forced 
the Protestants to work secretly until they grew numerous 
enough to form a strong political and military party in 
the state. 

The first church was organized in Paris in 1555, and four 
years later the first synod of several churches met, adopt- 
ing a statement of faith and an organization providing 
clergymen and elders for the government of the local 
church, as in early Christianity, and a series of synods 
for guiding all the churches. From this time for nearly 
half a century religious wars (intermingled with national 
and international politics) followed between the two parties 
with brief periods of tolerance and efforts at adjustment. 
A settlement was made by the Edict of Nantes in 1598. 
Nearly a century later this was revoked and hundreds of 
thousands emigrated and many were martyred. 

In the Netherlands the course of the Reformation paral- 
leled that in France, although it was even more bloody 
because of the violent tyranny of the representatives of the 



42 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



> 

absentee ruler, the king of Spain. The victory of William 
of Orange, the splendid leader of the Protestant forces, 
brought about a long truce in 1609. 

The Reformation in Scotland. Scotland felt the re- 
forming influences at first from Germany, but later, and 
very much more strongly, from France, her traditional ally. 
In spite of prohibitions of the Scotch Parliament the doc- 
trines spread. The first martyr was a fine scholar, Patrick 
Hamilton, burned at the stake in 1528. The great leader, 
however,^ was John Knox, a disciple of George Wishart, 
who was martyred in 1546, the year after Knox accepted 
the Protestant faith. After punishment as a galley slave 
for assisting in efforts to free Scotland from France, Knox 
worked for the Reformation in England until driven out, 
then studied in Geneva and returned to Scotland in 1559 
under the patronage of many of the nobility. Here with 
unquenchable zeal he preached the Reformation every- 
where, attacking shrines and monasteries. 

In the civil war which followed the Protestant forces 
triumphed and in 1567 the Scotch Parliament declared the 
Reformed Church *'the only true and holy Kirk of Jesus 
Christ in this realm." For some years after this there was 
conflict between church and state, in which the church 
finally won freedom from interference. The religious 
thought of the Scotch church followed very closely that of 
Calvinism and, in spite of some efforts to have the church 
governed by bishops, the "presbyterian" form of govern- 
ment, similar to that in French Switzerland and France, 
became permanent. 

The Reformation in England. In England the devel- 
opment of the Reformation came about in a very different 
way from that of the other countries.^ There was the same 
growing spirit of nationalism, of hostility to clerical con- 
trol, of independent piety (as fostered by Wycliff's follow- 

1 In the Scandinavian countries the leadership of the rulers in their effort 
to gain control of the wealthy church estates and their promotion of Refor- 
mation ideas to gain support is somewhat parallel. 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 



43 



ers), but the leadership in bringing the Reformation about 
was in the hands of the king, Henry VIII. 

Though personally having no sympathy with Protestan- 
tism, he found himself in opposition to the Pope because 
of the latter's unwillingness to grant him a divorce. Under 
the influence of the king, who was very popular w^ith the 
people, Parliament passed a series of acts 'from 1532 to 
1534, forbidding payment of church revenues or the sending 
of legal appeals to the Pope, and finally put the appoint- 
ments to high ecclesiastical offices in the king's hands and 
declared him to be *'the only supreme head of the English 
Church." The king meanwhile married a new wife, his 
archbishop declaring this marriage valid, and the Pope 
excommunicated him. The result of the break was to 
spread Protestant ideas and to give opportunity for agita- 
tion for Protestant reforms, although the authorities did 
little to foster it, and the various statements of faith which 
were issued were distinctly Catholic save for the elimina- 
tion of the Pope. 

Under Edward VI (1547-53) the Protestant leaders were 
able to push matters further. Images were removed from 
the churches. The clergy were permitted to marry. A Book 
of Common Prayer, based on the old orders of worship, but 
made Protestant in tone, was issued and all others pro- 
hibited. A statement of faith called the "Forty-two Articles 
of Religion" (later **Thirty-nine") was published. Thus 
the making of England Protestant was well under way, 
but the accession of Mary, a devout Catholic (1553), 
brought a sharp reaction, and in three years she neafly 
undid the work of Edward's reign, though not without 
violence and bloodshed. 

But in 1558 Elizabeth became queen, and the return 
of Protestantism began, though not as rapidly as it had pro- 
gressed under Edward. From this time on, however, there 
was no re-establishment of Catholicism in England. For 
many years Catholics were persecuted, and not until 1829 
were the legal restraints upon Catholics entirely removed. 



44 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



The result of the Reformation in England was thus the 
establishment of a national church governed and directed 
by the state, the bishops and archbishops holding their 
appointments from the king. As in the other Protestant 
churches the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church were 
reduced to two, namely, baptism and the Lord's Supper; the 
repetition of the sacrifice of Christ in the mass was done 
away; the authority of the Bible was emphasized. 

The Anglican Churches, as the Church of England and 
those descended from it (for example, the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in the United States) are called, have laid 
great stress upon the organization of the church under 
bishops in ''apostolic succession," in contrast to the presby- 
terian organization of the Reformed Churches of Scotland, 
France, and Switzerland, and have also emphasized the 
sacraments and use of fixed forms of worship more than 
they have been emphasized in the Reformed Churches. 

Catholic counter-reformation. The rise of Protestan- 
tism had the effect not only of producing extensive separa- 
tions from the Catholic Church, but of stimulating changes 
within it. In Spain and in Italy efforts were made to re- 
form the administration of the church, and in 1545 the 
great Council of Trent was summoned to consider doc- 
trinal changes, the reform of abuses, and action against 
the increasing separations. Although it met for varying 
intervals for eighteen years, and did succeed in making 
more definite its statements of doctrine, these were more 
firmly mediaeval than before and no very great practical 
results came of the measures recommending reforms. 

More effective was the work of a new religious order, 
the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, founded by a devout 
Spanish soldier, Ignatius Loyola, and approved by the Pope 
in 1540. Working under unusual grants of power from the 
Pope, with a very closely knit organization and elaborate 
supervision, by scholastic and political skill they became 
the most effective agents of the Pope in hindering the 
advance of the Reformation and in regaining lost territory 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 



45 



Toy securing a change of religion on the part of the rulers 
of Protestant or tolerant principalities. 

Religious wars. More destructive of the strength of 
the Protestant Church were the bitter religious and po- 
litical wars which followed the efforts of the papacy to 
regain the lost lands in the years from 1566 to 1618. For 
the thirty years following 1618 northern Europe, especially 
Germany, was swept by a succession of devastating wars, 
chiefly between Protestant and Catholic princes in varying 
alliances. Had it not been for the leadership and skill of 
Gustavus Adolphus, who brought aid from Sweden, much 
more of northern Europe might have been lost by the 
Protestants. When finally both sides were exhausted, the 
Peace of Westphalia (1648) was signed, recognizing equal 
rights of Protestants and Catholics and providing amicable 
processes for the adjustment of religious relationships. 

But it will be noticed that almost nowhere was it 
thought that different religious faiths or different forms of 
the Christian faith could tolerate each other. The adherents 
of any church other than the state church were for more 
than a century to be regarded as potential spies or traitors. 
But there was an opportunity for new religious move- 
ments to find foothold where indifferent rulers and political 
expediency left religious issues to one side. 

Results of the Reformation. The century and a half 
after Luther's posting of the theses saw more extensive 
and radical changes in the life and organization of the 
Christian Church than had any equal period since its 
beginning. In place of the single great church of the Middle 
Ages, there now remained in allegiance to the Pope only 
the churches of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Bavaria, 
Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Germany, France (chiefly 
though not exclusively), Belgium, Poland, and Ireland. He 
had lost to the Lutheran movement Sweden, Norway, Den- 
mark, and much of Germany; to the Calvinistic movement 
Scotland, the Netherlands, and parts of Switzerland and 
Germany, to the Anglican movement England. In each of 



46 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



these lands national or state churches were established. 
The political authority of the Pope over Europe was ended. 

Another great change was the more democratic form of 
organization of the new churches, although not until "free" 
churches, not attached to the state, began to rise, did the 
churches acquire the energy and vitality that come from 
having the entire responsibility for support, promotion, and 
direction put upon the members. Moreover, in the Protes- 
tant parts of Europe the worship of the Virgin and the 
Saints, the use of relics, indulgences, the practice of the 
monastic life, and the service of the mass were done 
away. 

More important than all, however, was the new recog- 
nition of the direct relation between man and God, the con- 
sequent emphasis on the study of the Bible, and the stimu- 
lus to strenuous moral endeavor. A new impetus had 
been given to the deepening and expansion of vital Chris- 
tianity, even though for some time the new churches were 
weakened and dulled by the bitter conflicts through which 
they had passed. 

Collateral Readit^g 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Churchy Period VIII, 

Chapters III to IX. 
Lindsay, T. M., A History of the Reformation, Vol. II. 
Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in Christian History, Lessons 

19-21, 27-3L 

Questions for Thought and Discussion ' 

1. Who was John Calvin? How was his thought con- 
trasted with Luther's? Where was his reforming activity 
chiefly carried on? 

2. What difiiculties did the Reformation face in France? 

3. Who were the leaders of the Reformation in Scotland? 
In what lands did the **presbyterian" form of government 
become characteristic of the Reformed Churches? 

4. Trace the fortunes of the Reformation in England 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLT 



47 



under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. On 
what principle was the Established Church organized? 

5. Who was Loyola? What were the purposes of his 
society? 

6. Summarize the results of the Reformation, noting dif- 
ferences between religious conditions at the end of the 
Reformation and now. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE RISE OF MODERN DENOMINATIONS 

It will not be possible in the limits of this little book 
to trace the growth and history of the Lutheran, Reformed 
(Calvinistic), Anglican, and Catholic Churches in all lands, 
interesting as that would be. But, in order to understand 
those churches which we find alongside of our Methodist 
Episcopal Church in the United States, such as the Presby- 
terian and the Congregational, we must consider certain 
developments in English Christianity. 

The growth of the Presbyterian movement. After 
the Church of England was finally established as Protestant 
by Queen Elizabeth, there were many who felt that she had 
gone too far and many who felt that she had not gone far 
enough. The bishops tried to establish uniform methods 
of conducting services and arranging the altars and equip- 
ment of the churches. But to these methods, to the admin- 
trative power of the bishops, and to the control of the 
church by the civil power many clergymen and laymen 
objected. They desired that the church should govern itself 
in the presbyterian way by councils of clergymen and elders 
(presbyters) and that the ministers should be selected by 
the congregation, and they attacked episcopacy as not 
authorized by the Bible. 

The government, in spite of the widespread sympathy 
with the movement, began energetically to suppress it. 
This resulted in dividing the "presbyterian" group known 
as the "Puritans" into two, the one part desiring to stay 
in the English Church and to make it "presbyterian" and 
the other, known as the "Separatists" or "Independents," 
asserting that it was wrong to remain in a church that was 
not organized according to Scripture and that true believers 
must organize independent churches for themselves. 

48 



MODERN DENOMINATIONS 



49 



As it happened, the Puritan hostility to the bishops coin- 
cided with a similar hostility on the part of Parliament 
and people to the autocratic power of the king. Parliament 
also desired the help of Scotland against the king. The 
Scotch were devoted to the presbyterian form of church 
government and to the doctrines of Calvinism. At their 
instance the English Parliament agreed to displace the 
episcopal organization of the English Church by a presby- 
terian one, and this was done in 1648. At the same time 
the Westminster Assembly of the church, summoned by 
Parliament, adopted the so-called "Westminster Confes- 
sion," which was based on the Thirty-nine Articles, but was 
more strongly Caivinistic. This Confession is substantially 
the statement of belief used by all the Presbyterian 
churches of to-day. The new organization was, however, 
slow in starting, even while the Puritans were in power 
under Oliver Cromwell, because of the opposition of the In- 
dependents. In 1660 with the "Restoration" of the mon- 
archy (Charles II) episcopacy was at once restored and 
remained the polity, as it is called, of the Church of Eng- 
land and of all its branches and descendants in the British 
colonies and America ever since. 

The Presbyterians now found themselves outside of the 
Church of England in spite of themselves, even though they 
(as all Englishmen even now) must pay taxes for the 
support of the state church. Some of them joined a Scotch 
presbytery that was formed in London in 1772. In 1876 
the branches of the Scotch churches in England and these 
original English Presbyterians united to form the Presby- 
terian Church of England. Emigrants to America from 
among these Scotch and English Presbyterians laid the 
foundations upon which the strong Presbyterian Churches 
of the United States and Canada have been built. 

The rise of tlie Congregationalists and tlie Baptists. 
The Independent or Separatist group was only loosely 
bound together, but in certain definite points they were 
alike. They believed that a true church was formed not 



I 



50 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



of those who were born into it, but of believers who by a 
voluntary covenant or contract joined together for that 
purpose, that each congregation so formed should have 
entire control over its affairs, and that there should be 
clear separation between church and state. One such 
church was formed by Browne in 1586 and was promptly 
crushed by the state. But gradually others formed, several 
of them emigrating to Holland to escape persecution. Part 
of one of these exiled congregations just three hundred 
years ago, as Pilgrims seeking ^'freedom to worship God,'* 
landed at Plymouth in New England, making there the 
first permanent settlement in what was to become the 
United States of America. They were soon joined by a 
group of Puritans and with them formed the foundation 
of the Congregational Churches of the United States. 

Another group of Independents felt very strongly and 
consistently that infant baptism had no place in a "cov- 
enant*' church, though the other Independents had con- 
tinued its practice without such scruples. In this respect 
this group was similar to groups of Independents called 
"Anabaptists," who had been active in Germany and 
Switzerland during the Reformation. The first churches 
of the "Baptists," as they were called, were formed in 
Amsterdam in 1609 and in London in 1612. In Cromwell's 
regime they flourished, but later, with most of the English 
Churches, they grew weaker until the coming of the Wes- 
leyan Revival. The Baptists were great believers in re- 
ligious liberty and suffered much for that cause. Like the 
Presbyterians and Congregationalists, many of them emi- 
grated to America in colonial times and from them the 
great Baptist Churches of America have grown. 

Other religious bodies, such as the Quakers, or the So- 
ciety of Friends, and our own Methodist Episcopal Church, 
also were brought to the United States by emigrants from 
England. The story of the latter will be traced in detail 
in other chapters, but here it will be worth while to note 
something of the Christian denominations now in the 

\ 



MODERN DENOMINATIONS 



51 



United States and their size and activity. Some of them 
may be grouped rather easily into families; others stand 
apart. 

Tlie size of American denominations. The last gov- 
ernment census of religious bodies, taken in 1916, reported 
nearly 42,000,000 members in the 204 religious bodies or 
denominations in the United States, of v^hich 187, repre- 
senting a membership of over 41,000,000, may be classed 
as Christian denominations. To find so many divisions in 
the Christian Church in a comparatively new country would 
seem most surprising and certainly discouraging to the 
cause of Christian unity. But it must be remembered that 
perhaps nearly two score of these denominations have 
come to this country by emigration from the divisions of 
the Christian Church in the Old World, some of the di- 
visions being due to immigration of the same denomination 
from countries using different languages. Furthermore, 
twelve of the 187 (or one-fifteenth) enroll over 35,000,000, 
or nearly nine tenths, of the membership and ten of the 
twelve have more than 1,000,000 members each. To look 
at it another way, 153 denominations (or eight tenths of 
them) average less than 12,000 members apiece, and of 
these denominations 110 have less than 10,000 members, 
44 having less than 1,000. Thus the Christian Church in 
the United States is divided into a few large denominations 
and many very small ones. 

The largest single denomination of Christians in the 
United States is the Roman Catholic Church. This church 
has grown largely through immigration, chiefly from Ire- 
land and Italy, though from many other countries as well. 
Its reported membership in 1919 was 17,735,000 on the 
basis of all baptized persons, including infants. As most 
of the other denominations do not compute their member- 
ship on this basis, comparisons are difficult to make. 

The next largest single denomination is our own, the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, with a membership of over. 
4,394,000 in 1920, of whom over 510,000 are in foreign 



52 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



mission fields. The Methodist group or family of churches 
is the largest numerically, having over 7,950,000 members 
in the seventeen denominations in the family. The more 
important are as follows: 

Methodist Episcopal Church (1920) 4,394,000 

Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1920) 2,254,752 

African Methodist Episcopal Church (1919).. 551,000 
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 

(1920), 458,000; (Census) 257,000 

Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (1920), 

267,000; (Census) 245,000 

Methodist Protestant Church (1920) 179,500; 

(Census) 187,000 

Free Methodist Church (1920), 37,000 (Census) 35,000 

Two other churches, not classed as Methodist, but having 
vital historical association with the Methodist Churches and 
very similar to them in their organization and life, are 
the Evangelical Association (159,000) and the United Breth- 
ren (371,000 in two denominations). 

The Baptist family is the next largest with 7,207,000 
members in seventeen bodies. Of these the Northern Bap- 
tist Convention numbers 1,232,000; the Southern Baptist 
Convention 2,709,000; and the National Baptist Convention 
(colored) 2,938,000, these three containing ninety-six per 
cent, of the entire Baptist family. 

The Lutheran family numbers 2,493,000 members, of 
whom nearly 1,190,000 are in one church, the United Lu- 
theran Church in America, formed in 1918 by the union of 
the three Lutheran bodies which had the largest member- 
ship. Other Lutheran bodies here are kin to Lutheran 
bodies in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. 

The Presbyterian family has had several divisions and 
reunions in its history. It numbers approximately 2,255,000 
members in ten denominations. The largest is the Presby- 
terian Church in the U. S. A. (Northern) with over 1,620,000 
members. The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (South- 



MODERN DENOMINATIONS 



53 



ern) has 364,000 members, the United Presbyterian Church 
161,000. Active movements are under way for a larger 
union of the Presbyterian Churches and for bringing into 
the union the Reformed Churches which have similar 
methods of church organization. The latter family has 
538,000 members in four organizations. 

There are three other single denominations of large mem- 
bership. The Disciples of Christ, formed under the leader- 
ship of Alexander Campbell in 1827 as a protest against 
the divisions in the Christian Church, has now a member- 
ship of 1,493,000. The Protestant Episcopal Church, de- 
scended from the church formed by the early American 
colonists who were members of the Established Church of 
England, numbers 1,087,000 members. The Congregational 
Church, tracing its American origin to the Church of the 
Pilgrims of just three centuries ago, now has on its rolls 
809,000 members. 

All of the denominations named and many of the smaller 
ones are active and vigorous. Almost all have developed 
boards of home and foreign missions, schools, colleges, and 
theological schools, periodicals and publishing houses. In 
no other great country is so large a proportion of its popu- 
lation actively related to the Christian Church and actively 
carrying all the meaning of the gospel into every part of 
the life of the nation. 

Collateral Readixg 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church — 

Period VIII, Chapter XII. 

Period IX, Chapters I, III, V, VI. 
Rowe, H. K., Landmarks in Church History, Lessons 32-37. 
Selbie, W. A., English Sects. 

Bacon, L. W., A History of American Christianity. 

Qltestioxs for Thought axd Discl'ssiox 

1. Explain how the Presbyterian denominations came into 
being. 



54 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



2. What was the difference between the Presbyterians 
and the "Separatists"? What denominations owe their 
origin to the Separatist movement? 

3. The population of the United States is approximately 
105,000,000. Estimate the percentage of population in the 
leading religious bodies. 

4. How do you account for the fact that some 60,000,000 
of the population are not church members? What respon- 
sibilities rest upon the churches because of this? 

5. How many of the people in your town are church 
members? What responsibility has your church toward 
the rest? 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY 

In the previous chapters we have seen the Christian 
Church grow from the little groups of Christians in a few 
cities near the Mediterranean Sea until it spread over all 
of Europe and the British Isles and across into North 
America. We have now to study how it has been expanding 
into other parts of the world. 

The beginnings of expansion. Practically all of Europe 
had been reached by the gospel and had become at least 
nominally Christian by the thirteenth century. At the 
eastern end of the Mediterranean there were the remnants 
of the Greek, the Coptic, the Abyssinian, and the Nestorian 
Churches, which had been almost entirely swept away by 
the Mohammedans. Outside these limits there were hardly 
any Christians anywhere in the world, even as late as the 
beginning of the Protestant Revolt. Europe at that time 
knew very little of the world which was beyond its shores 
except the vague reports of occasional travelers to the 
East and the still more vague guesses as to what lay be- 
yond the Atlantic Ocean. But in 1492 Columbus reached 
the West Indies and the discovery of the Americas opened 
up a new world. Six years later Vasco da Gama rounded 
the southern end of Africa and journeyed by sea to India. 
The two centuries following were marked by a violent com- 
petition between the nations of Europe for control over 
these new lands and for the mastery of the sea. 

In the wake of the pioneer discoverers went pioneer 
missionaries, carrying the gospel of the redeeming love of 
Christ to those who had never heard his name. Such was 
Francis Xavier (1506-1552), one of the first members of 
the Society of Jesus and the first of its long line of mis- 

55 



56 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



sionaries. Journeying afar, never tarrying long in one 
place, reckless of comfort and life, he poured the passion 
of his soul into incessant labors in India and in Japan, to 
win thousands to Christian baptism and to the ceremonies 
of the papal church. Other missionaries, building on his 
foundation, raised a church in Japan, numbering two hun- 
dred thousand in 1582, but unrelenting persecution finally 
crushed it in 1640, and for two centuries Japan^ was closed 
to the gospel. 

Still greater missionary activity went forward in the New 
World. The Catholic kingdoms of Spain and Portugal 
opened the West Indies, the southern part of North America, 
and South America, to colonization, to commerce, and to the 
missionary zeal of the Catholic monastic orders. Hun- 
dreds of priests and monks accompanied the conquerors 
and sought to baptize and to train the Indians. The 
method of the invaders was often violent, and both the civil 
and the ecclesiastical government aimed to dominate, rather 
than to educate and uplift the subject races. However, the 
immigration of increasing numbers of Spaniards and Portu- 
guese and the labors of friars and monks, often heroic and 
self-denying, made Latin America Catholic, and at least 
nominally Christian. The virility of the religious life of 
North America has not characterized the lands of the South, 
which have not received the priceless benefits of public 
education and the power to read the Bible, ''every man in 
his own tongue.*' 

The beginiiiiig of Protestant Missions. In this first 
period of expansion the Protestant forces were strangely 
inactive and indifferent to missionary endeavor. Neither 
Luther nor Calvin seemed to feel any concern about the non- 
Christian world. Even as late as 1781 when William Carey 
inquired of the Association of Baptist Ministers in Eng- 
land whether the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20) 
was not still in force, he was answered by the chairman: 
**Sit down, young man! You are a miserable enthusiast 
to ask such a question. When God wants to convert the 



THE EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY 



57 



heathen, he can do it without your help or mine; and at 
least nothing can be done until a second Pentecost shall 
bring a return of the miraculous gifts." 

But already men had become conscious of the call of 
God to help. Into the formal and controversial atmosphere 
of the Lutheran Church in 1675 the Dresden court preacher, 
Philip Jacob Spener, brought the teachings of a living, 
practical, personal Christianity, which ^'embraced the whole 
world with its loving thought." Its principles of conver- 
sion, of Bible study, of spiritual experience, and missionary 
activity are taken for granted to-day, but such was the 
opposition of his time that their advocate was driven from 
his pulpit. 

The movement thus inaugurated, called Pietism, found 
a refuge at Halle, where Spener's most gifted disciple, 
August Francke, developed, in a new university and a train- 
ing school for Christian workers, influences that have 
reached every part of the world. To the University of 
Halle in 1703 came a student, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, 
^'seeking nothing else in the world but the glory of God's 
name, the spread of God's kingdom, and the propagation 
of divine truth," and from Halle in 1705 Ziegenbalg and a 
fellow student, Henry Piiitschau, were sent out to Tranque- 
bar by Denmark on the first organized Protestant foreign 
mission. These two German lads were indeed the first 
student volunteers. To the Danish-Halle Mission in India 
came other pupils of Francke, preeminent among them 
Christian Schwartz, one of the greatest apostles to the non- 
Christian world. From 1750 to 1798 his career as a mis- 
sionary was illustrious, filled with noble and most self- 
denying labors, winning the respect and confidence of 
British and Hindu. At his death the native Christians 
numbered fifty thousand. 

The Moravians. The hidden seed of the Word, carried 
by followers of John Hus from the valleys of Bohemia, 
brought forth fruit a hundredfold three centuries later in 
the Church of the Moravians at Herrnhut in Germany. 



58 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Under tlie protection of Count Zinzendorf, who had been 
a pupil of Francke at Halle, this humble church, called the 
"Unity of the Brethren," began in 1732 to send its light 
into all the world. Within twenty years it had started more 
missions than all other Protestants in the two centuries 
preceding, reaching the West Indies, Greenland, Labrador, 
Dutch Guiana, Georgia, New York Indians, the Gold Coast, 
and Cape Town. In missionary method, as in missionary 
spirit, it continues to this day an example to Christen- 
dom. The whole church is a missionary society and exists 
for one object, the proclamation of the gospel in the need- 
iest places of the world. The spirit of the Moravians is 
expressed in the glowing words of their leader, Zinzen- 
dorf, *'I have but one passion. It is He, only He!" 

William Carey. If the Moravians were the pioneering 
missionary church, the pioneering individual of the mis- 
sionary movement was the Baptist minister, William Carey. 
As he sat at the cobbler's bench, where he added to his 
meager stipend, in the little English village, with a map 
of the world before him, his spiritual vision saw a thousand 
million souls without Bible or preacher or Saviour. In 
season and out of season he urged the obligation of obey- 
ing Christ's last command. For ten years he bore the sneers 
and taunts of indifference and inertia. *'But when God lets 
loose a thinker and a seer, when a saint gets on his knees, 
watching the dawn, and sees God's signal flashing, floods 
and flames cannot stay his progress." (Pierson.) 

At last, his memorable sermon in Nottingham in 1792, 
the most far-reaching utterance in the era of modern mis- 
sions, with its two mighty appeals, ''Expect great things 
from God — attempt great things for God," brought con- 
viction to his hearers, "so clearly," says his former re- 
buker, Dr. Ryland, "did he prove the criminality of our 
supineness in the cause of God." A humble band of twelve 
men formed themselves into the Particular Baptist Society 
for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, and, "as 
such an undertaking must needs be attended with expense," 



THE EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY 59 



took a subscription for the conversion of the world, 
amounting to £13 23. 6d. Carey offered himself as their 
first missionary. For forty years he served his Master in 
India, as evangelist, translator, publisher, and teacher of 
Oriental languages — the leading spirit of his time in mis- 
sions. In the field of his pioneer endeavor there are now 
five million Christians. 

Early English missionary societies. Even earlier in 
the eighteenth century societies had been founded in Eng- 
land and Scotland for the "Promotion of Christian Knowl- 
edge" in the colonies, among them the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, chartered in 
1701, for many years exclusively colonial in its work. It 
was under this Society that John Wesley came to Georgia 
in 1735. As an immediate result of the mission of William 
Carey, the London Missionary Society began its long and 
honorable career, at first interdenominational, later "Inde- 
pendent," or Congregational. This Society sent out the 
great pioneers — Robert Morrison to China in 1807, John 
Williams to the South Seas in 1814, and to Africa Robert 
Moffat in 1818 and David Livingstone in 1840. 

In 1786 the Methodists in England began their foreign 
mission enterprises, but it was not until 1816, two yfears 
after the death of Thomas Coke on his way to India, that 
the Wesleyan Missionary Society was formed. It has been 
quaintly said that "during Dr. Coke's lifetime it was not 
deemed necessary to organize a missionary society among 
the Wesleyans, as he embodied that great interest in his 
own person." 

In 1799 a group of clergymen of the Church of England, 
leaders in the Evangelical Movement, organized the Society 
for Missions to Africa and the East, which was later 
changed to the Church Missionary Society. Henry Martyn 
(1781-1812) was the first clergyman of the Anglican 
Church to offer himself for foreign work, but the East 
India Company preferred to accept him as a chaplain 
rather than admit him as a missionary. Among the great 



60 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 

names of the Church Missionary Society are Reginald He- 
ber (1783-1826), author of ''From Greenland's Icy Moun- 
tains" and many another noble hymn, who went to India, 
and Alexander M. Mackay (1849-1890), whose brave life 
was given to Uganda in Africa. 

The beginnings of American missionary societies. 
The missionary zeal of the Williams College student, Sam- 
uel J. Mills, kindling into white heat the flame of devo- 
tion of his comrades at Andover Seminary, Adoniram Jud- 
son, Samuel Nott, and Samuel Newell, was the inspiration 
of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions, founded as an interdenominational enterprise in 1810. 
The change of creed of Adoniram Judson, who set sail for 
India as a Congregationalist and arrived as a Baptist, led 
to the organization in 1814 of the American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Society. The Presbyterians formed their own so- 
ciety in 1837 and the Reformed Churches later. Since 1870 
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions has been practically confined to the churches of Con- 
gregationalism. In 1819 the Missionary and Bible Society 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church began its first century 
of service. Its story is reserved for another chapter. 

Of the number of missionary societies in existence to-day 
an accurate statement is not possible. The Foreign Mis- 
sions Conference of North America includes in its reports 
more than two hundred such bodies, belonging to the 
United States and Canada. The contributions of North 
America for world-evangelization on the eve of the World 
War were more than thirty million dollars a year. 

The unfinished task. The task of world-evangelization is 
but begun. In this, the twentieth century of the Christian 
era, the followers of Confucius are said to number over 
300,000,000, those of Mohammed over 200,000,000, the devo- 
tees of Buddha 140,000,000, while the Hindus are counted 
to over 200,000,000; against this overwhelming force of 
"enemies of the cross" is arrayed the army for the Chris- 
tian conquest of the world, numbering 576,000,000, of which 



THE EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY 61 



the Protestant division is but 167,000,000 strong. The vast 
continent of Asia with its 400,000,000 of China, its 815,- 
000,000 of India, the 77,000,000 under the Empire of Japan, 
and at least 100,000,000 of other races, has fewer ' than 
10,000,000 Protestants. Africa with its 170,000,000—52,000,- 
000 Mohammedan, 99,000,000 pagan— has hardly 19,000,000 
Christians, including the British and Dutch immigration to 
South Africa. It is said that for every thirty-three natives 
of Africa who become Christian, one hundred become Mo- 
hammedan. The thirty million Mohammedans of Malaysia 
are almost untouched by Christian influences. 

''And when Jesus saw the multitudes, he was 
moved with compassion for them, because they 
were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having 
a shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The 
harvest indeed is plenteous, hut the laborers are 
few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, 
that he send forth laborers into his harvest.^' 

Collateral Readiin'G 

Leonard, Delavan L., A Hundred Years of Missions, Chap- 
ters VI-IX, XXIII. 

Smith, George, Short History of Christian Missions, Chap- 
ters XIII-XV. 

Mason, Caroline Atwater, World Missions and World Peace, 
Chapter IV. 

Smith, George, Twelve Pioneer Missionaries (William 
Carey) . 

Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church, Period VIII, 

Chapter XI; Period IX, Chapter VII. 
Moore, E. C, The Spread of Christianity in the Modern 

World. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. What were the boundaries of Christendom at the end 
of the thirteenth century? 

2. How did Latin America come to be Roman Catholic? 



62 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



3. What reasons can you give for the differing character- 
istics of religious and social conditions in North and South 
America? 

4. What movement gave the first impulse to Protestant 
foreign missions? 

5. Tell the story of William Carey. 

6. What were the earliest missionary organizations in 
England and America? 

7. Compare the numerical strength of Protestantism with 
the forces which it must conquer for Christ. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE WESLEYAN REVIVAL: BEGINNINGS 

Eighteenth-century England. The eighteenth century 
found England at ebb tide in its social, intellectual, and 
religious life. Between the rich and the poor among its 
five or six million people there was a great gulf fixed. 
The laborer with wages of a few cents a day lived in hope- 
less squalor upon the coarsest fare; for his children, who 
must toil like himself, there was no chance for an educa- 
tion, except in the tew inadequate charity schools. The 
least infraction of the law brought him into a vile prison* 
or to Tyburn, where half of London flocked gayly to see 
him die. The spirit of the times was coarse and brutal. 
At the other social extreme there was much riotous living. 
Luxury and immorality were the rule, with, however, many 
notable exceptions. The streets of London, then a city of 
but half a million inhabitants, were infested with highway- 
men, who robbed late pedestrians of their gains at the 
gambling table. The literature of the age was mainly 
stilted and artificial, characterized by "hot-house fragrance, 
rather than the freshness of the mountain breeze." 

To the deadness of the times the church brought no liv- 
ing message. Many of the clergy were ignorant of the 
Scriptures, skeptical or indifferent, and low in morals. 
The gospel was not heard in most of its pulpits. Yet under- 
neath this state of spiritual dearth and social degeneration 
the currents of a nobler faith and practice were still flow- 
ing. It was into such an age that John Wesley brought the 
message of "scriptural holiness,'' of the life in Christ 
through the power of the Spirit, possible to every man. 

John Wesley's early life, John Wesley was born in 
the first decade of the eighteenth century and lived until 

63 



64 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



its last decade (1703-1791). **For such a time as this" 
God called him to the kingdom, a prophet of the "newness 
of life" in Christ. Puritan and Nonconformist, commoner 
and aristocratic lines converged upon his birth, but each of 
his parents had chosen adherence to the Church of Eng- 
land, and his birthplace was the humble rectory at Epworth. 
He was the eleventh of the nineteen children of the Rev. 
Samuel Wesley and Susannah, his gifted wife, who was in 
the estimation of her distinguished son also ''in her measure 
and degree a preacher of righteousness." The community 
was rough and little inclined to yield to the vigorous 
preaching of the energetic rector. 

But within the home, though often in poverty, there was 
an atmosphere of genuine piety, wise discipline, and high- 
mindedness, which characterized the noble mother of this 
unusual family. With serenity and sagacity she gave her- 
self by an unremitting system to the training of her little 
flock in prompt obedience and self-control, in the beginnings 
of culture and religion, setting apart special hours for 
spiritual conversation with each of her children. When in 
1709 unruly villagers set fire to the Epworth rectory, the 
almost miraculous escape of her son John from the burning 
building led her "to be more particularly careful of the 
soul of this child." 

At the age of twelve John Wesley was placed in the 
famous Charterhouse School in London; at seventeen he 
entered Christ Church College, Oxford University, an eager 
and successful student, fond of his fellows, of keen and 
sparkling wit, and reflecting much upon his mother's words, 
"In good earnest resolve to make religion the business of 
your life." In 1726 John Wesley was appointed Fellow of 
Lincoln College and as a college don lectured faithfully on 
many subjects — languages, logic, philosophy. 

The Holy Club. When after a brief curacy John Wesley 
resumed the duties of his Fellowship at Oxford in 1729, 
he found that his younger brother, Charles, had developed 
a new seriousness in religion and with a group of his 



THE WESLEYAN REVIVAL 



65 



fellow students at Christ Church College had resolved to 
attend weekly sacraments and to "conform strictly to the 
method of study and practice laid down by the University." 
It was to this little group, of which John Wesley became 
the leader, that the term "Methodist" was first applied. 

Religious earnestness and methodical habits were suf- 
ficiently exceptional in the Oxford of that day to excite 
ridicule of these lads, most of them under twenty years of 
age, but derision did not move them from their hours of 
prayer, of reading together the classics or works on reli- 
gion, of attending the sacraments, from their frugality and 
industry and systematic social service in the prisons and 
among the poor. It is not difficult to picture the meetings 
of this little group, probably never more than thirty in 
number, gathering perchance in John Wesley's room in 
Lincoln College, to read "chiefly the Greek Testament," to 
plan their visits to the Boccardo or the Castle Prison, or 
discuss with seriousness and sincerity the tenets and prac- 
tices of the church. 

The Wesleys in Georgia. General Oglethorpe, a remark- 
able man of the most active and varied benevolence, re- 
solved to give the debtors of the Fleet and Marshalsea 
Prisons, whom in charity he had sought to aid, a chance 
of beginning again in the New World. Under the charter 
granted by George II he was appointed governor of Geor- 
gia, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
Foreign Parts undertook the sending of ministers to the 
colony and missionaries to the Indians. John and Charles 
Wesley accepted this commission and landed in Georgia in 
1736. 

The two years spent by John Wesley in America were 
not of great value to the colony, since his chaplaincy was 
characterized by a rigid High Churchism, repellent and 
controversial. But in the development of his own religious 
experience they were of prime importance, for it was on 
the voyage and in the colony that he met the Moravians, 
whose deep spirituality and calm trust in God led him to 



66 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



seek the secret of their religious life. It was largely the 
influence of August Spangenberg, the Moravian pastor in 
Georgia, and of Peter Bohler, whom he met in London on 
his return, that led him into the larger faith. 

The conversion of John Wesley. When John Wesley 
went to Georgia, he had "the faith of a servant, not that of 
a son." He was also '*in the bonds of a servile ecclesias- 
ticism." On his return, under the guidance of his Moravian 
friend, Peter Bohler, he earnestly sought for ''that faith 
whereby alone we are saved, with a full Christian salva- 
tion." Into the joy of that faith his brother Charles had 
already entered. 

Then at a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, as he 
listened to the reading of Luther^s Preface to the Epistle 
to the Romans, describing the change which God works in 
the heart through faith in Christ, John Wesley felt his 
heart strangely warmed. '*I felt I did trust in Christ, 
Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given 
me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved 
me from the law of sin and death." This day. May 24, 
1738, is recognized in the records of Christian progress as 
the birthday of Evangelical Methodism, a landmark in 
the history of Protestant Christianity. 

George Whitefield. Among the later members of the 
Holy Club was a tapster's son from Gloucester, who came 
to Pembroke as servitor in 1732. In 1735 George White- 
field, under the influence of a little book, "The Life of 
God in the Soul of Man," suddenly entered into the joy 
of conscious salvation in Christ — three years before this 
experience came to the Wesleys. Gifted with an irresistible 
eloquence, this youth of twenty-two years, ordained in 1736, 
startled England with his preaching. After a short stay in 
Georgia he returned to England in 1738, to find the spiritual 
change which had come to John and Charles Wesley. Then, 
under the leadership of these three men — Whitefield, the 
tongue of fire; Charles Wesley, the singer of noble hymns; 
and John Wesley, preacher, organizer, leader — began that 



THE WESLEYx\N REVIVAL 



67 



marvelous revival which became a spiritual revolution, 
a mighty movement in the progress of the kingdom of 
God. 

Tlie beginnings of the Wesleyan Revival. The year 
1739 is epochal in Methodism. The fiery eloquence of 
Whitefield, who had now become **the evangelical free lance 
of two continents," stirred the opposition of the Established 
Church. When its doors were closed to him he preached 
to thronging thousands in the open air. For more than 
thirty years "he flashed from side to side of the Atlantic 
and kindled revivals wherever he went." The English 
historian, Richard Green, finds the secret of his influence 
in the intense reality of his preaching, its earnestness of 
belief, its deep, tremulous sympathy with the sin and sor- 
row of mankind. 

The Wesleys, not without some reluctance, soon followed 
Whitefield's example of ''proclaiming in the highways the 
glad tidings of salvation." Mob violence often attacked, but 
never intimidated them. Conversions were constant, often 
attended with extreme physical agitation. 

Toward the end of 1739 John Wesley, at the desire of 
some of the converts, began to meet w^ith them weekly 
for prayer and counsel. "This," he writes, "was the rise 
of the United Society, first in London, and then in other 
places." In 1743 he published "The Nature, Design, and 
General Rules of the United Societies," and henceforth the 
Methodists became a "Connexion." 

The Hymns of the Revival. "Charles Wesley was the 
sweet singer of the great Revival. In his soul the new ex- 
periences burst into song. He gave the world sixty-five 
hundred poetical compositions. His 'human hymns,' as set 
over against the Psalms then used in the churches, were 
quickly popular with the outdoor congregations of new 
converts. Green says: 'His hymns expressed the fiery 
conviction of its converts in lines so chaste and beautiful 
that its more extravagant features disappeared. The wild 
throes of hysteric enthusiasm passed into a passion for 



68 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



hymn-singing, and a new musical impulse was aroused in 
the people which gradually changed the face of public de- 
votion throughout England/ All phases of Christian expe- 
rience were sung by him; all Methodist doctrines were made 
clear and defended in his lines; and through all the life 
and fire, love and joy of the Methjodist Revival breathed. 
. . . Others also sang in this revival period. John Wesley 
made translations and wrote stately verses; Williams gave 
us 'Guide me, O thou great Jehovah'; Cennick left us 
*Thou great Redeemer, dying Lamb'; Olivers chanted 'The 
God of Abraham Praise'; and Perronet sang 'All hail the 
power of Jesus' name!'; but Charles Wesley was and is 
the bard of Methodism, the hymnist of all Christendom."^ 

Collateral Reading 

Parker, P. L,, Tlie Heart of John Wesley's Journal. 
Fitchett, W. H., Wesley and His Century, pages 1-200. 
Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. I. 
John Wesley, Methodist. 

Townsend, Workman, Eayrs, The New History of Method- 
ism, Vol. I, Book I, I-IV. 
Tyerman, The Life and Times of John Wesley. 

QUESTIOiN^S FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 

1. Describe the condition of English life at the beginning 
of the eighteenth century. 

2. Picture the childhood of John Wesley. 

3. What was the Holy Club? 

4. What influences led John Wesley into new religious 
experiences? 

5. Describe his conversion. 

6. How did Methodism begin? 

7. Find in Charles Wesley's hymns the characteristics 
of the spiritual experience of the early Methodists. 



1 Dr. S. L. Beiler. 



CHAPTER X 



THE WESLEYAN REVIVAL: EXPANSION AND 
ORGANIZATION 

The development within the Societies. The United 
Societies consisted of ''awakened persons"; within them 
were swiftly developed most of the characteristic features 
of Methodism — the Band, an inner fellowship of those who 
were ''supposed to have remission of sins" and who were 
seeking the higher life; the Love Feast, a general gather- 
ing of the members, after the fashion of the "Agapae" of 
the early church; the Class Meeting, where small groups 
were placed under the spiritual guidance of a class leader; 
the Watch Night and Covenant Services for the renewal of 
consecration. 

Chapels soon became a necessity; the first was "The 
Foundery," once used to cast the king's cannon, at Moor- 
fields, London; the opening of the "New Room" at Bristol 
followed with much rejoicing. The "Orphan House," with 
its chapel, at Newcastle, was the first building erected by 
the Methodists for their own use. With the need of funds 
for these enterprises the office of steward developed. 

Liay preaching. Spontaneously in various parts of Great 
Britain laymen began to preach the gospel, a practice Avhich 
Wesley was reluctant to approve. His wise mother urged 
him to examine the fruits of their preaching before he 
forbade them, and by this test he was compelled to sanction 
their efforts. As the societies became more numerous the 
lay preachers followed the example of the Wesleys and 
Whitefield in itinerating among them. Soon regular circuits 
were established and the itinerant preacher became an in- 
stitution of Methodism. Mr. Wesley at once laid down 
Qualifications for the preachers, and minute and model 

69 



70 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



rules for their conduct and ^studies. He appointed assist- 
ants or superintendents to oversee the circuits, making 
monthly reports to him. 

At first donations of food and clothing only were made to 
these heroic itinerants; later £12 a year was allowed them, 
gradually increased to £33 annually for the preacher and 
his family. Under such self-denial he rode the long and 
difficult rounds of his circuit, often preaching several times 
a day. His saddlebags were his wardrobe and his library, 
and highwaymen had no cause to molest him. But he 
carried in his heart "the riches of grace in Christ Jesus, 
our Lord," and he accomplished for England what no 
statesman, no ruler could accomplish. 

The women of early Methodis^n shared in the leading of 
classes, in the teaching and benevolence, and sometimes 
even in the preaching. **God owns women in the conversion 
of sinners," said Mr. Wesley, "and w^ho am I that I should 
withstand God?" The names of Mary Bosanquet, the wife 
of the saintly John Fletcher, and of Hester Ann Rogers are 
written honorably into the story of early Methodism. 

The Conference. As the lay preachers and their cir- 
cuits increased, the necessity for a conference of the chief 
workers became evident. Such a conference Mr. Wesley 
called in 1744 — the first of the Conferences of Methodism. 
Ten persons attended it, at the Foundery, London — six 
clergymen and four lay preachers. By Mr. Wesley's favorite 
method of question and answer, still in use, its minutes 
were recorded. Matters of doctrine and polity w^ere care- 
fully considered. 

Henceforth, the Conference met annually, Mr. Wesley 
presiding, appointing the preachers to their circuits, and 
governing the whole movement. Thus in five years (1739- 
44) nearly all the characteristic features of Methodism 
were established, not arbitrarily, but as Mr. Wesley's quick 
discernment and wise judgment saw and met the need. 

The philanthropy of the early Societies. The United 
Societies were animated, like the Holy Club, with the aim 



THE WESLEYAN REVIVAL 



71 



"to do good to all men." Out of their poverty the members 
"gave themselves and all they had to God," and in His name 
shared their meager fare with the poor, the sick, the 
stranger. Never despairing of the most vicious and de- 
based, they sought to rescue and uplift. Into the crowded 
prisons and at the gallows they brought to men, wom.en, 
and children the comfort of the redeeming grace. 

Mr. Wesley's systematic mind laid down rules for the 
Societies' benevolence, and his example stimulated it. "I 
save all I can, and give all I can, that is, all I have," was 
his own rule throughout his life. The increase of income 
increased not his expenditure, but his beneficence. Money 
he "threw out of his hands, lest it find a way into his 
heart." 

Education. To provide for the children of the colliers, 
and later for those of the traveling preachers, the Kings- 
wood Schools were founded in 1739. For these and other 
schools Mr. Wesley selected the teachers; he wrote and 
edited grammars of English, French, Greek, Latin, and 
Hebrew, ancient histories, and books on logic. He made 
rules for the conduct, diet, and curricula of the children, 
among them the rule forbidding play! This lover of little 
children must have had in mind the violent and often brutal 
games of the schools of that day. 

To his preachers he urged the duty of studiousness; 
"Read the most useful books, and that regularly and con- 
stantly." He advised the use of five hours a day in reading 
and offered to give each preacher, as fast as they could 
read them, books to the value of five pounds. 

With Dr. Thomas Coke he founded a Tract Society in 
1782. He wrote many tracts, and edited many abridgments 
of Milton, Herbert, Bunyan, and others, which, issued in 
cheap form, had an enormous circulation. A part of his 
work for God was the founding of the Book Room, whose 
publications helped to educate the preachers and members 
of the Societies, and whose profits were devoted to their 
benefit. Under his own name some four hundred publica- 



72 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 

tions are listed. The English historian Richard Green 
writes that it was the spiritual movement led by John Wes- 
ley which **gave the first impulse to our popular education.'' 

The Societies and tlie Estalilished Church, Mr. Wes- 
ley never withdrew from the Church of England. Though he 
came to renounce "the fable of apostolic succession," and 
lost his sympathy for High-Church methods, ecclesiastical 
and political, and for the national claims of the Establish- 
ment, his love for the church of his childhood did not fail. 
Notwithstanding the antagonism of the church and many 
of its clergy to the Societies, he persuaded the Conference 
of 1755 not to secede. But Methodism was gradually be- 
coming a church, though without the name of ''church." 

The condition of the Methodist Societies in America, 
being without the benefit of clergy and sacraments after the 
American Revolution had dissevered them from the Church 
of England, forced Mr. Wesley, after appealing in vain to 
the Bishop of London, himself to ordain Dr. Coke as super- 
intendent, with Mr. Asbury, of "the distressed sheep in 
America." Other ordinations — for Scotland, Newfoundland, 
Antigua, and even for England — followed. In 1788, three 
years before his death, Mr. Wesley wrote, "A kind of separa- 
tion has already taken place, and will inevitably spread, 
though by slow degrees." 

Mr. Wesley's character and work. In 1791 Mr. Wes- 
ley's remarkable life of eighty-eight years came to an end. 
The more one studies the character of this servant of God, 
especially through the medium of his Journals, the keener 
do one's interest and admiration become. "The more 
abundant life" was unfailing in his mind and soul and 
conduct. Macaulay says that he possessed a genius for 
government; Matthew Arnold ascribes to him a genius for 
godliness. His industry and endurance w^ere almost mirac- 
ulous; for more than a half century he rode horseback over 
the circuits, eight thousand miles a year, and preached 
annually not less than seven hundred and fifty times. **That 
dear man of God," said Mr. Asbury, **his equal is not to be 



THE WESLEYAN REVIVAL 



73 



found among ail the sons he hath brought up, nor his su- 
perior among all the sons of Adam he may have left be- 
hind." 

For the measure of John Wesley's achievements one must 
look not alone at Methodism, with its thirty-six million 
adherents in all the world, its doctrine and polity, which 
he laid down, its passion for evangelism, philanthropy, edu- 
cation, missions, which was his own. To have founded such 
a church is to have contributed inestimably to the progress 
of the kingdom of God. But the influence of Mr. Wesley 
revitalized all Protestantism; the Evangelical Revival 
within the Church of England, with its great constructive 
reforms, owed much to Methodist stimulus and example. 

The social and moral impress of the Wesleyan Revival 
upon England, purifying society, breaking up the mob 
spirit, promoting the sense of the dignity and seriousness of 
life, teaching the value of the individual and the spiritual 
meaning of democracy, has produced unmeasured good. It 
changed the face of England and contributed to the spirit 
of liberty and brotherhood everywhere. One hundred years 
after the death of John Wesley the verdict of his country- 
men pronounced him "one of the greatest of Britain's sons." 
For the secret of his power we must go back to the little 
gathering in Aldersgate Street, when his heart w^as 
strangely warmed with new-found faith in Christ. 

Collateral Reading 

Townsend, et al., The New History of Methodism, Vol. I, 

Book I, Chapter VI. 
Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. II, Chapters 

LIV-LXIV. 

Fitchett, W. H., Wesley and His Century, pages 200-375. 
Stevens, Abel, The History of Methodism, Vol. II, Book VI. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. Show the lines along which the early Methodist So- 
cieties developed. 



74 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



2. What was John Wesley's attitude toward education? 
toward social service? 

3. What was the relation of the early Methodist Societies 
to the Church of England? 

4. Describe the characteristics of Mr. Wesley. 

5. What is the measure of his influence upon the Method- 
ist movement? upon England in general? 

6. What was the secret of his power? 



CHAPTER XI 



BRITISH METHODISM SINCE 1800 

Wesley's provision for the future of Methodism. 

John Wesley was too wise an administrator, too deeply 
concerned with the progress of Christ's kingdom, not to 
make some measure of provision for the United Societies 
when his steady hand could no longer guide. The property 
of Methodism had been held in his name; his had been the 
deciding voice in its government. Seven years before his 
death, in 1784, the year also of the organization of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, Wesley 
enrolled in the High Court of Chancery his famous Deed 
of Declaration and Establishment of the People Called 
Methodists, appointing one hundred of his preachers to act 
as the supreme legislative and administrative authority. 
The Legal Hundred were required to meet yearly, and to 
maintain the doctrines and the itinerant system. They 
were given power to fill vacancies in their own number. 

In a letter of Mr. Wesley, read after his death, he begged 
the Hundred to be guided by Providence and not to take 
advantage over the other preachers. So loyally has this 
counsel been observed that from 1791 to 1878 the Wesleyan 
Conference included virtually all the ordained and regular 
ministers. In 1878 the laymen were added in equal num- 
bers. Through the Deed of Declaration the United So- 
cieties were held together after Mr. Wesley's death. 

The relation with the Church of England. Mr. Wes- 
ley left undetermined the relation of the United Societies 
with the Established Church. This question was continu- 
ally in hot debate in the succeeding Conferences. The ad- 
ministration of the sacraments, at first denied, was gradu- 

75 



76 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



ally and partially conceded in the Societies. In 1795 the 
final step was taken; the Plan of Pacification constituted 
the Societies into a church. Even so, the separation was 
slowly accomplished. For nearly thirty years the traveling 
preachers did not call themselves ministers. The title 
''Reverend" was authorized in 1818. 

The Wesleyan Methodist Church and the secessions. 
During the sixty years after Mr. Wesley's death the history 
of British Methodism is one of dissension and schism, and 
of rapid numerical progress. There was constant resistance 
to that vhich the growing spirit of liberty regarded as 
clerical autocracy. In 1811, under the influence of Lorenzo 
Dow, who brought camp-meeting methods from America, 
the Primitive Methodists withdrew; in 1797 about five 
thousand members, desiring more power in the hands of 
laymen, formed the Methodist New Connexion; in 1815 
members in Devonshire constituted the Bible Christians; 
on account of the introduction of an organ into the chapel 
at Leeds in 1828 the Protestant Methodists were estab- 
lished; because of opposition to theological seminaries in 
1835 the Wesleyan Methodist Association was founded. 

In 1857 occurred the amalgamating of the Protestant 
Methodists, the Wesleyan Methodist Association and certain 
Reform Methodists into the United Methodist Free 
Churches. In 1907 this body joined the Bible Christians 
and the Methodist New Connexion in constituting the 
United Methodist Church of Great Britain. This process 
of unraveling and knitting together again will be complete 
when at no distant day the union of the Wesleyan Methodist 
Church, the Primitive Methodists, and the United Methodist 
Church of Great Britain brings into one church all the 
followers of John Wesley in his native land. 

Liay representation in the Wesleyan Church. For 
nearly ninety years the government of Wesleyan Methodism 
was purely clerical. The Legal Hundred, chosen by John 
Wesley, appointed their own successors, until 1814, when 
every fourth election was made by and from ministers of 



BRITISH METHODISM SINCE 1800 



77 



fourteen years standing, who could also choose the president 
and secretary of the Conference, their choice to be legalized 
by the assent of the Hundred, which is never refused. In 
1878 the Wesleyan Church substituted for the clerical 
government a Conference composed equally of ministers 
and laymen. This action brought the Wesleyans into line 
with the democratic branches of British Methodism and an 
era of Methodist reunion at once began, soon doubtless to 
be made complete. 

The figures of British Methodism. Over 850,000 mem- 
bers are on the class books of the Wesleyan Methodist 
Church. It owns 9,000 churches, from the great City 
Mission Halls to the little village chapels. Twenty-two 
hundred ministers, more than 20,000 local preachers, and 
nearly 50,000 class leaders administer the church. There 
are 1,000,000 children in its schools. From churches and 
chapels went close upon 300,000 men to the World War, of 
whom 24,453 made the supreme sacrifice. The missionary 
and educational enterprises of the church are an honor to 
Methodism. The Primitive Methodists number over 200,000, 
the United Methodist Church of Great Britain about 170,000, 
while there are some 20,000 in smaller branches. 

The Methodist Church of Canada. The heroic begin- 
nings of Methodism in Canada more than a century ago 
were the faithful work of the circuit riders, penetrating 
the wilderness to plant the seed of the Word in the scat- 
tered settlements. Canada's honor roll contains the names 
of William Losee, William Black, Nathan Bangs, Freeborn 
Garrettson, and the families of Philip Embury and Barbara 
Heck. The Conference in Canada, organized in 1824, was 
set apart from the church in the United States in 1828; 
from 1833 to 1840 it was attached to British Methodism. In 
1844 the Methodist Church of Canada was formed by the 
union of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Methodist 
New Connexion, and the Methodist Church of East British 
America. Further amalgamation in 1884 completed the 
establishment of one Methodism in the Dominion of Canada, 



78 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



including also Newfoundland and Bermuda. Since 1902 
the union of the Congregational, Presbyterian, and Method- 
ist Churches of Canada has been under consideration, and, 
though halted by the Presbyterians in 1917, it is now prac- 
tically accomplished. 

The Methodist Church of Canada, loyal to the doctrines 
and methods of John Wesley, has a General Conference, 
composed of twelve Annual Conferences, including about 
2,700 ministers, over whom a General Superintendent pre- 
sides. Its membership and that of its Sunday schools each 
comprise about 400,000, its adherents 1,500,000. Canada 
presents important home mission fields, in which Method- 
ism is valiantly laboring, while it conducts large foreign 
mission enterprises in China and Japan. 

The Methodist Church o£ Australasia. As in other 
communities and other lands, it was a layman who formed 
the first class meeting in Australasia, an English school- 
master in Sidney in 1812, Thomas Bowden. Through his 
appeals to the Wesleyan Church, missionaries were sent 
both for the colonists and the aborigines. Gradually the 
Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christians, and the United 
Free Churches also began work there. The Methodist 
Church of Australasia, formed by the union of the many 
branches of Methodism in Australia, New Zealand, and 
Tasmania, held its first General Conference in 1904. The 
Primitive Methodists of New Zealand did not join the Union 
Church, however, until 1913. The Methodist membership 
includes about one twelfth of the population of Australasia, 
and numbers over 1,000 ministers, 9,000 lay preachers, 4,500 
churches, and 200,000 members. 

Methodism in South Africa. A British soldier, George 
Middlemiss, preached the first Methodist sermon in South 
Africa in 1806. The progress of Methodism was carried 
forward by English chaplains of the British colonists, and 
extended also among the native tribes. There are about 
150,000 Methodists in South Africa, mainly of the Wesleyan 
Methodist Church. The prospect of a united Methodism in 



BRITISH METHODISM SINCE 1800 79 



South Africa is full of promise for the spiritual and social 
welfare of its varied peoples. 

Collateral Reading 

Townsend, et al., The New History of Methodism, Vol. I, 

Book I, Chap. VII, Book II-III. 
Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism^ Vol. VII, pages 

1-151. 

Fitchett, W. H., Wesley and His Century, Chapters X, XI. 
Stevens, Abel, History of Methodism, Vol. II, Book V, 
Chapter VI. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. How did Mr. Wesley provide for the continuance of 
Methodism after his death? 

2. What was the Deed of Declaration? the Plan of Pa- 
cification? 

3. What were the causes of the several secessions in the 
sixty years after Mr. Wesley's death? 

4. Describe British Methodism — the Methodist Church of 
Canada — Australasian Methodism — ^Methodism in South 
Africa. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM IN AMERICA 

The founders of American Methodism. ^'Methodism 
came to America in the hearts of the emigrants. It did not 
come officially, as an organization, but as an experience in 
the heart and an impulse in the life." On August 11, 1760, a 
company of emigrants from County Limerick, Ireland, 
landed in New York, then a city of about twenty thousand 
inhabitants. Among those who had made the six weeks' 
voyage were several followers of John Wesley, who had 
visited Limerick in 1758, and of the Methodist movement 
begun in England a score of years before. Philip Embury, 
a Wesleyan local preacher of German Palatine descent, a 
carpenter and school-teacher, and his cousin, Mrs. Barbara 
Heck, were among the first comers, who were joined five 
years later by others of a more worldly type. 

Surprising her brother and his friends one day at a game 
of cards, Barbara Heck in distress threw the cards into the 
fire, warning the players of their spiritual danger, and 
hastened to the house of Philip Embury, to beg him to 
preach to them. Mr. Embury invited the little company, — 
but five at first, — into his cottage and began preaching 
services, later forming his hearers into a class. Thus in 
1766 the first British Wesleyan Society in New York, per- 
haps in the country, was organized. Many conversions 
followed Mr. Embury's earnest ''message of redeeming 
love." The sound of singing drew to the cottage some of 
the soldiers from the neighboring barracks and these en- 
listed in the army of the Lord. 

To the alarm of the congregation, one day there appeared 
at the service a British ofiicer in scarlet uniform. Was he 

80 



THE BEGINNINGS IN AMERICA 



81 



come to disperse them and rebuke the soldier converts? 
The green patch over his right eye, lost in the siege of 
Louisburg, and his arm, bearing the scars gained in scaling 
the heights of Quebec with Wolfe, were evidences of a 
brave military career, but Captain Thomas Webb was also, 
as he announced himself, "a soldier of the cross and a 
spiritual son of John Wesley." **A man of fire" Mr. Wesley 
had found him to be and had licensed him to preach; 
"the power of God constantly accompanies his work." New 
energy stirred the little society at the preaching of the man 
with the scarlet coat. The rigging loft, rented in 1767, 
could not hold half the people. The prayers of Barbara 
Heck for a new place of worship were answered, and the 
eloquence and generosity of Captain Webb helped to secure 
in 1768 the historic site in John Street, where later the 
edifice was built. The rugged, old soldier, ''with his soul 
on .fire for God," carried the impetus to form new societies 
into Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. 

At about the same time a Methodist movement had simi- 
larly begun in Maryland, of which the New York group 
had not heard. This also was led by an emigrant from 
Ireland, Robert Strawbridge, who built the Log Meeting 
House on Sam's Creek, in the backwoods region of Fred- 
erick County. His glowing sermons won many to Christ. 
Wherever he went in eager itinerating, he "raised up 
preachers." 

Help from, across the sea. Letters concerning these 
new enterprises began to make their slow way across the 
Atlantic to Mr. Wesley, pleading that preachers be sent *'to 
the church in this wilderness," in the conviction, as wrote 
Thomas Taylor in 1768, that **in the goodness of God such a 
flame will soon be kindled as would never stop until it 
reached the great South Sea." So eager was the desire for 
the preachers from England that Mr. Taylor pleaded, **We 
could sell our coats and shirts, to procure their passage 
money." Wesley presented the question to the Conference, 
meeting at Leeds in 1769: "We have a pressing call from 



82 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



our brethren at New York (who have built a preaching 
house) to come over and help them. Who is willing to go?" 
The answer was ''Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor." 
**What can we do further in token of our brotherly love?" 
Answer: "Let us now take a collection for them." The 
result was £70, part used for the journey, part for the debt 
on the building on John Street. 

Already Robert Williams and his friend, Ashton, had 
gone voluntarily, to aid **the lost sheep in America." 
Richard Boardman became the first British Wesleyan 
superintendent of the societies in America, putting Mr. 
Wesley's system of rules in operation among them, for 
they were still "under the authority of Mr. Wesley." To 
Joseph Pilmoor's effective preaching is due the first Method- 
ist church in Philadelphia. He brought to this country the 
love feast and Watch Night as features of Methodism. A 
former Kingswood schoolboy, Joseph Pilmoor, like his 
companion, Richard Boardman, was only about thirty years 
of age when he came with such great responsibilities to the 
New World. 

Francis Asbury, the Prophet of the Long Road. 

When in 1771 Mr. Wesley again "pointed the Conferences 
to the brightening light in the Western sky," five preachers 
volunteered to go to America, and two were chosen, Francis 
Asbury and Richard Wright. Francis Asbury, the son of 
an English gardener, was led in his boyhood by the Wes- 
leyan preachers to the joyous experience of grace. Eager 
for others to share it, at seventeen he began to hold 
services for prayer and Bible reading. At twenty-six he 
offered himself for the work of America, with but one 
aim, "to live to God and to bring others to do so." 

For forty-five years this true apostle of Methodism traveled 
incessantly over the new continent, usually on horseback, 
from Maine to Virginia, through the mountains of Tennes- 
see, the wilderness of Kentucky; year after year he jour- 
neyed over this immense circuit, "a man without a home." 
Mr. Asbury belonged to that evangelical cavalry, which is 



THE BEGINNINGS IN AMERICA 



83 



said to have saved Christianity to the world in the eigh- 
teenth century. "The secret of his life and labors was a 
regnant sense of fellowship with God, a sense so real, so 
vivid, so dominant, that it drove him across seas, into 
cities and out of cities, through wildernesses and over 
mountains, a sense of fellowship so beautiful and so com- 
plete that it made him impervious to hardships, buoyed him 
amid common discouragements, and held him among dis- 
tressing torments, until at last the chariot of the Lord 
caught him up."^ 

The first Conference. On July 14, 1773, the first Method- 
ist Conference in America met in Philadelphia, with ten 
preachers in attendance, all of whom had been supplied by 
Mr. Wesley from British Methodism. The report of church 
membership was 1,160; 500 of these were in Maryland, 100 
in Virginia, 200 in New Jersey, 180 each in New York and 
Philadelphia. Methodism was still a society, not a church. 
The authority of Mr. Wesley was recognized, the Doctrines 
and Discipline of the British Methodists were accepted as 
the sole rule of conduct, the preachers were to "avoid ad- 
ministering the sacraments,*' and the people were urged 
to attend church and receive its ordinances. Mr. Asbury 
continued the practices of Mr. Wesley in requiring his 
followers to receive communion from the Established 
Church, not without some protest, notably that of Robert 
Strawbridge, who in the scattered and unchurched com- 
munities in which he itinerated was a law unto himself. 
The matter was the occasion for strenuous debate in the 
successive Conferences, until the organization of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. 

The American Revolution. The conflict between Eng- 
land and the colonists in America from 1776 to 1783 was a 
period full of peril to American Methodism. Mr. Wesley's 
advocacy of the English side in his "Calm Address to the 



1 E. S. Tipple, Francis Asbury, The Prophet of the Long Road. The Meth- 
odist Book Concern. 



84 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



American Colonies" and the Tory proclivities of the preach- 
ers from British Methodism stirred the antagonism of the 
patriots. The preachers from England, except Mr. Asbury, 
were unable to gain a hearing and often subject to violence; 
they soon followed the example of the clergy of the Estab-' 
lished Church and returned to their motherland. The final 
love feast of the Conference of 1777 broke up amid the 
tears of parting. The native preachers, though loyal and 
patriotic, were also sometimes persecuted, especially those 
who had conscientious scruples about war. Mr. Asbury 
took no part in politics and had become thoroughly 
Americanized, but he was obliged to spend a time in hiding. 

In spite of slanders and suffering, the. loss of leaders 
and the ravages of war, Methodism grew. **The resistless 
impulse of Methodist evangelism," which, in the ten years 
between the first circuit riding of that hearty Irishman, 
Robert Strawbridge, and the Revolution, had hurried the 
young Wesleyan itinerants up and down the new country, 
heralding the good tidings and winning converts, and the 
firm and careful work of Mr. Asbury could not fail of per- 
manent results. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church. In February, 1784, 
Mr. Wesley laid before Dr. Thomas Coke the American 
situation; the colonies of North America had become wholly 
disjoined from the mother country; the American brethren 
were now totally disentangled from the English govern- 
ment and the English hierarchy; the need of guiding "these 
poor sheep in the wilderness" was imperative; some form 
of church government must be devised for the Methodist 
Societies in America. Having failed to secure the ordina- 
tion of his preachers from the Bishop of London, he pro- 
posed, not without some hesitation and opposition, to ordain 
Dr. Coke and to send him with two assistants, Thomas 
Vasey and Richard Whatcoat, to serve Methodism in the 
new republic. Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury were appointed 
"joint superintendents over our brethren in North 
America." 



THE BEGINNINGS IN AMERICA 



85 



The Christmas Conference. Of the eiglity-one preach- 
ers in the Methodist connection, which had grown to about 
fifteen thousand members, nearly sixty assembled in Lovely 
Lane Chapel, in Baltimore, December 24, 1784, to receive 
Mr. Wesley's communications, brought by Dr. Coke, and, 
unanimously accepting them ''with solemn delight," formed 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Since Mr. Asbury refused 
to accept office without the vote of his brethren, the Con- 
ference unanimously elected Mr. Asbury and Dr. Coke 
to the superintendency to which Mr. Wesley had appointed 
them. The superintendents in 1788 gave themselves the 
title of "bishop," whicii was later confirmed by Conference 
action. The Christmas Conference wrote the first copy of 
the "Discipline" of the new church, provided for the found- 
ing of the first Methodist college in the world, Cokesbury 
College at Abingdon, Maryland, and sent out its first for- 
eign missionary, Freeborn Garrettson, to Nova Scotia. 

What the new church meant to the new republic* 
"It was certainly providential that just when the new nation 
had achieved independence and was taking form, and when 
its population was beginning to rush beyond the 
Alleghenies and take possession of the great W^est, this new 
church should come into existence with polity and leaders 
so admirably adapted to the times. When the air was full 
of the spirit of liberty it preached the freedom of all men 
to choose in matters religious. When the tides of popula- 
tion were sweeping Westward and new settlements were 
springing up daily, this new church with its itinerant min- 
istry followed every new movement and settled in new 
settlements with its class leaders and local preachers. 
Over the whole land, left somewhat religiously desolate by 
the Revolution, and honeycombed by the then popular in- 
fidelity, it swept in great revival power that reestablished 
religion, restored ethical standards, and saved young Amer- 
ica from anarchy of thought and religion and a worse 
savagery of life."* 



1 Dr. Samuel L. Beiler. 



86 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Collateral Reading 

Townsend, et al., The New History of Methodism, Vol. II, 

Book IV, Chapter III, I. 
Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. IV, Chapters 

I-XVIII, XXVIII-XXX. 
The Journal of Dr. Thomas Coke's Five Journeys to 

America. 

Tipple, E. S., Francis Ashury, The Propliet of the Long 
Road. 

Tipple, E. S., The Heart of Ashitry's Journal. 

QUESTIOXS FOR THOUGHT AXD DISCUSSION 

1. How did Methodism come to America? 

2. Tell the story of Barbara Heck — of Philip Embury — 
of Captain Webb — of Robert Strawbridge. 

3. What help did Mr. Wesley provide for the new Meth- 
odism in America? 

4. Describe the character and service of Francis Asbury. 

5. What effect did the American Revolution have upon 
the Methodist movement? 

6. What was the process of organizing the Methodist 
Episcopal Church? 

7. What was the value of Methodism to the new and ex- 
panding republic? 

8. What was the early history of the local church ofi 
w^hich you are a member? 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE EXPANSION AND DIVISION OF THE 
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

The churcli's expanding life. With the close of the 
Christmas Conference, in which the Methodist Episcopal 
Church came into organized life, its members **went every- 
where preaching the Word/' They were men of energy, 
zeal, and courage, adapted to meet the pioneer conditions 
of the young republic. Services were held in chapels, but 
more often in houses, or barns, or under the open sky. 
Camp meetings were developed, especially in the Middle 
West, and were the scenes of great revivals. These were 
the days of the circuit riders, ''stout-hearted, muscular, 
downright, practical men," who became large factors in 
the building of a Christian nation. 

For the first twenty years after the formation of the 
Society in New York, the movement of Methodism had 
been southward; thence it had turned westward beyond 
the Alleghenies, through almost unbroken wilderness in- 
fested with hostile Indians, into Kentucky and Tennessee, 
i When, in 1792, Kentucky became a State, it had a Con- 
ference of twelve preachers and twenty-five hundred mem- 
bers. 

I Pioneering into the frontiers. Freeborn Garrettson, 
of a notable Maryland family, "licensed to travel" in 1776, 
had visited the Eastern States from New Jersey to South 
Carolina, in perils oft, and only second to Asbury in evan- 
gelizing zeal. Appointed to summon the Christmas Con- 
ference in 1784, he went "like an arrow, from north to 
south," in six weeks riding twelve hundred miles. At this 
Conference, in response to the appeal of William Black, 

87 



88 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



who had brought Methodism from England to Nova Scotia 
in 1780, Mr. Garrettson was sent to this land of snow and 
frost, where in three years of incredible hardship he won 
six hundred members. 

Bishop Asbury in 1788 commissioned him "to extend the 
march of the church up the Hudson." Of his superb leader- 
ship Bishop Coke's Journal records in 1789, **With a set of 
inexperienced, but zealous youth, he has not only carried 
our work in this State as high as Lake Champlain, but has 
raised congregations in most of the States of New England 
and also the little State of Vermont within about one hun- 
dred miles of Montreal." In three years there were more 
than three thousand members in the circuit of a thousand 
miles over which this Greatheart traveled for his Mas- 
ter's sake. 

With another name the story of New England is pre- 
eminently connected. In 1783 Jesse Lee, a Virginian, en- 
tered the traveling ministry and, after laboring in Virginia, 
Maryland, and New York, planted Methodism in Massa- 
chusetts, preaching on Boston Common in 1790 to three 
thousand hearers. In the pioneer ministry of Methodism 
in Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois the labors of the rugged 
and eccentric Peter Cartwright were notable in "saving a 
rough, new land from barbarism." 

The progress of the churcli. When the 60 preachers 
assembled at the Christmas Conference in 1784, represent- 
ing 80 preachers and 15,000 Methodists, the territory of 
Methodism extended from the city of New York to North 
Carolina, along the Atlantic border, reaching inland about 
one hundred miles. When in 1808 the last non-delegated 
General Conference met in Baltimore, the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church was composed of over 140,000 members with 
500 traveling and 2,000 local preachers, and its domain had 
spread from the Gulf of Mexico into Canada, from the 
Atlantic Ocean across the Mississippi, In the period from 
1784 to 1808 there was continuous revival and the diffusive 
spirit of Methodism carried its influence over practically 



THE EXPANSION AND DIVISION 89 



all the populated portions of the country. *'I do not 
think/' says Professor John Alfred Faulkner, "that litera- 
ture presents finer specimens of bold enterprise for God, 
coupled with wise method of occupation of lands claimed 
for him, than it does in the biographies of the Methodist 
pioneers." The growth in membership advanced steadily 
from the 1,160 at the first Conference in 1773, until in 1844, 
in spite of several secessions, it passed the million mark. 

Controversies and secessions. The spirit of democ- 
racy, prevailing in the new republic, began to express 
itself in the church, even before the pioneer days were 
passed. The controversies arose not on matters of doc- 
trine, but church polity and moral reforms. To Mr. Wes- 
ley and the bishops, who came under his authority, the 
early Societies gave ready obedience. In the first years of 
the nineteenth century there was growing restiveness under 
this unlimited power. 

The rig:ht of laymen to a share in church government 
became a subject of debate. When the General Confer- 
ence of 1828 declined to open its doors to the laymen, 
a convention w^as held, leading in 1830 to the formation 
of the Methodist Protestant Church, with 83 preachers and 
about 5,000 members, under democratic form. This church 
has an honorable history; its present membership is nearly 
200,000. 

The year 1828 marked also the friendly setting apart of 
Canadian Methodism in . an independent church, "in conse- 
quence of their union with a foreign ecclesiastical govern- 
ment." 

In 1843 about six thousand members withdrew into the 
Wesleyan Methodist Church, on account of the tolerance of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church at that time for slavery 
and its decided opposition to the abolitionists. 

The secession of the Free Methodists occurred in 1860, 
in Pekin, New York, as an expression of desire to return 
to "primitive standards of faith, experience, and practice," 
and a belief in entire sanctification. 



90 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



The Primitive Methodist Church came from England by 
way of Canada in 1843, having sprung up in Staffordshire 
in 1810 under the preaching of the eccentric Lorenzo Dow, 
who, as already stated, carried over from America the 
methods of the camp meeting. 

The bisecting of the church. The General Conference 
of 1844 was brought face to face with the question of 
slavery. To Mr. Wesley the Slave Trade was "the execra- 
ble sum of all the villanies." The first public anti-slavery 
utterance in the new republic is said to have been the pro- 
nouncement of the Conference of 1780, ''Slavery is contrary 
to the laws of God." In 1816 the rule was made that no 
slave-holder could hold ofSce in the church in the States 
permitting emancipation. The years 1830 to 1840, however, 
were marked by conservatism on the matter of slavery; 
radical action was not favored. But public sentiment 
against slavery was growing in the country and the 
historic anti-slavery attitude of the church could not be 
forgotten. The toleration of slave-holding by laymen did 
not extend to the clergy, and, when a member of the Balti- 
more Conference became by marriage the owner of slaves, 
he was suspended by that Conference and the action was 
sustained by the General Conference of 1844. Still more 
agitating to this Conference was the fact that one of the 
bishops, James Osgood Andrew, had by bequest and by 
marriage come into possession of slaves, which the laws 
of Georgia, where he resided, forbade him to emancipate. 
The Conference asked him "to desist from his office as long 
as this impediment remains." The Southern delegates pro- 
tested that such action rendered unsatisfactory a con- 
tinuance of the jurisdiction of the Conference over the 
slave-holding States. 

This situation led to the division of the church. In 1845 
450,000 members formed the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and in 1851 an equitable portion of the church prop- 
erty was transferred to the new organization. Though dev- 
astated by the Civil War, which cost it 250,000 members, 



THE EXPANSION AND DIVISION 



91 



the Church, South, has advanced in every line of Christian 
endeavor, evangelistic, educational, missionary. Its mem- 
bership is now 2,173,000; its preachers number about 7,500, 
its Sunday school pupils over 1,700,000; it has nearly ninety 
educational institutions in this country, with assets of 
over $24,000,000; its subscription in the Centenary, which 
it celebrated with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1919, 
was $58,000,000 for home and foreign missionary work. 

Progress toward reunion. In 1869 friendly greetings 
were exchanged between the two great branches of Method- 
ism and fraternal relations were established. In 1876 com- 
missions of the two bodies met at Cape May and fixed the 
"Basis of Fraternity." Since the Cape May Conference a 
growing sentiment in favor of organic union has led to 
definite steps toward it. The Ecumenical Methodist Con- 
ference in 1881, 1891, and later, contributed to the desire 
for unification. In 1894 a Joint Commission on Federation 
was instituted, becoming in 1910 a Federal Council, in 
which also the Methodist Protestant Church had a share. 
The use of a common Hymnal and Form of Worship has 
stimulated the sense of unity. 

The Joint Commission on Unification, growing out of 
these contacts, has been working upon a Plan of Unification 
by Reorganization, introducing the feature of regional 
Conferences, which has been under consideration by both 
branches of the church without adoption by either body. 
The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
in 1920, reaffirming its ''deep conviction'' that the two 
churches should be reunited, proposed a joint general con- 
vention of from two to four hundred members, to consider 
this Plan, or any other which might be submitted. This 
Conference appointed a commission of twenty-five, to con- 
tinue negotiations with the commission of the Church, 
South. 

The colored membership of Methodism. In addition 

to the three hundred thousand colored members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, the colored followers of John 



92 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Wesley are represented by eight branches, of which three 
are numerically important. The conviction that the col- 
ored members would have more freedom of action and en- 
joyment of religious privileges if under their own leader- . 
ship, led to the formation in Philadelphia in 1816 of the 
African Methodist Episcopal Church. A similar move- 
ment in New York resulted in the African Methodist Epis- 
copal (Zion) Church, the wwd **Zion" being taken from 
the church where the movement originated. Both have 
become widespread and number in the aggregate nearly a 
million souls. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church 
consists of the colored members of the Church, South, 
formed into a separate church in 1870. These groups differ 
practically none at all in doctrine, polity, and usage. Dis- 
cussion of union among these churches is frequent. 

The status of the colored membership of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church is indicated by the fact that among the 
bishops elected by the General Conference of 1920 were two 
colored delegates, honored members of the Conference. The 
residential area of one of these new bishops was fixed for 
the first quadrennium in the South; that of the other was 
Liberia. 

German organizations. The conversion to Method- 
ism of the Rev. Philip William Otterbein, pastor of a 
German Reformed Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 
and his evangelistic preaching led, in 1800, to the formation 
of a church organization called the United Brethren in 
Christ. A similar movement in the same region began in 
the spiritual comfort which Jacob Albright received from 
the teachings of the Methodists, when he was bereaved of 
all his children. In .1807 the societies which he had de- 
veloped were joined into the Evangelical Association, which 
since 1894 has existed in two divisions. 

The important work of the Rev. William Nast, a man of 
remarkable religious experience and deep spirituality, who 
began founding German churches in the Middle West in 
1835, has resulted in the many German Conferences of the 



THE EXPANSION AND DIVISION 



93 



Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and the 
extension of Methodism into Germany. 

Ecumenical Metliodism. At the General Conference, 
meeting at Baltimore in 1876, a proposal was made that 
every ten years an Ecumenical Methodist Conference should 
be held in England and America alternately, representing 
all the diversified communities of Methodists throughout 
the world. This is not a Conference for legislation or doc- 
trinal controversy. Its main objects are to devise means 
to avoid waste or rivalry, to promote Christian fraternity, 
to discuss educational and moral problems, and to increase 
the spiritual unity of the Methodist people. The first of 
these Conferences was held in London in 1881. An equal 
number of ministers and laymen compose them. At each 
of them some decisive development of Methodist union has 
been reported. In 1891 Canadian Methodism announced 
that in that Dominion Methodism had united in one church. 
In 1901 the Australians reported that Methodist union had 
been effected in Australasia. In 1911 the union of the 
Methodist New Connexion Church, the Bible Christians, 
and the Free Methodists into the United Methodist Church 
of Great Britain was the cause of satisfaction in the Con- 
ference and indicated the growing interest in the actual 
unity of Methodism. In 1921 the speedy consummation of 
the unification of British Methodism and a similar happy 
event in the United States were eagerly predicted. 

Collateral Reading 

Townsend, et al., The New History of Methodism, Vol. II, 

Book IV, Chapter III, II. 
Tipple, E. S., Freedom Garrettson. 

Tipple, E. S., Francis Ashury, The Prophet of the Long 
Road. 

Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. IV, Chapters 
XVI-XVII, XLI-XLVII; Vol. V, Chapters XLVIII-LV, 
LXIV-LXVIII, LXXXIII-V, XCII-XCV. 



94 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Buckley, J. M., Constitutional and Parliamentary History 

of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy Chapter XXXL 
Neely, T. B., American Methodism, Its Divisions and 
Unification, Chapters I-VII. 

QUESTIOiS'S FOR THOUGHT AXD DISCUSSION 

1. What were the frontiers of Methodism in the beginning 
of the nineteenth century? What are they to-day? 

2. Who were the great pioneers who carried Methodism 
into new territory? 

3. What controversies caused the secessions of the first 
half -century of the Methodist Episcopal Church? 

4. What has been the attitude of Methodism toward 
slavery? 

5. What was the occasion of the ''bisecting of the church" 
in 1844, and what was the result? 

6. What efforts have been made toward ''unification*' and 
what is the chief obstacle? 

7. What Methodist branches are there among the col- 
ored people of the United States and what was their 
origin? 

8. What is the Ecumenical Methodist Conference? 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZATION AND LIFE 

The constitutional basis of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. At the Christmas Conference the newly organ- 
ized church adopted a Discipline and twenty-four Articles 
of Religion, modified from those of the Church of England, 
and accepted the liturgy and hymn-book sent by Mr. Wesley. 
"The name of Mr. Wesley was inexpressibly dear to the 
Conference,'* wrote one of its members. The Binding Min- 
ute, continuing the relation to British Methodism, 
acknowledged the readiness of his American **sons in the 
gospel, in matters belonging to church government, to 
obey his com.mands," an action which Mr. Asbury did not 
approve, though he did not oppose it. It was soon re- 
scinded. Annual Conferences w^re held, in which the 
bishops had deciding power. 

In 1789 a Council was devised, consisting of Bishop 
Asbury and eleven presiding elders, appointed by the 
bishops, but this plan of administration was soon aban- 
doned as dangerous to the liberties of the church. The 
necessity for a General Conference on a democratic basis 
became imperative. First held in 1792, and at intervals 
of four years thereafter, and at first composed of all the 
preachers in full connection from all parts of the United 
States, this became the legislative body of the church. To it 
the election of the bishops was committed. In 1796 the Gen- 
eral Conference fixed the boundaries of six Annual Con- 
ferences, and established the Chartered Fund, from which at 
first the support of the bishops and traveling preachers came 
in part, but later its income was devoted wholly to the 
distressed or superannuated among them. 

95 



96 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



The restrictive rules. The most important of the early 
General Conferences was that of 1808. By its action future 
General Conferences became delegated bodies, thus dis- 
tributing the responsibility evenly over the territory of 
the growing church. It framed a group of Restrictive 
Rules, which have been the basis of its government ever 
since. By them the General Conference is prohibited from 
altering or revoking the Articles of Religion and stan- 
dards of doctrine and from any change which would "do 
away episcopacy or destroy the plan of our itinerant gen- 
eral superintendency." 

These Rules provide that no minister and no member 
shall be deprived of the right of trial and that the produce 
of The Book Concern and the income of the Chartered 
Fund shall not be diverted from the benefit of the travel- 
ing, supernumerary, or superannuated preachers, or their 
dependents. These Rules resemble the Ten Command- 
ments in that they prohibit rather than direct; beyond these 
limits the General Conference is at liberty to adopt rules 
and regulations for the church. Provision for their amend- 
ment was also made, which now requires the concurrence 
by two thirds vote of the members of the Annual Con- 
ferences, the Lay Electoral Conferences, and the General 
Conference. This provision, however, does not apply to 
the Rule concerning any change in the Articles of Re- 
ligion. 

The spirit of democracy in the church. The progress 
of church government toward a more and more thoroughly 
democratic basis was constant. First obeying cordially 
**the mind and will of Mr. Wesley," then directed by the 
bishops of his appointment, then electing the bishops, but 
submitting to their control, later creating a Council which 
added a few presiding eiders to the governing power, the 
church finally formed its preachers into the General Con- 
ference and obeyed the laws and rules of that body. But 
'*a religious movement which had spiritually emancipated 
laymen" could not continue under the administration of 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZATION 97 



the clergy alone. The agitation in favor of lay delegates 
in the General Conference, which led in 1830 to the forma- 
tion of the Methodist Protestant Church, was continuous. 
The General Conferences of 1840, of 1852, of 1856, dismissed 
the matter as "inexpedient." In 1860 it was submitted 
to vote of the ministers and members of the church and 
defeated. 

But the sentiment of the church, under the influence 
of the church press, was growing more favorable to the 
admission of laymen into the governing body of the 
church and, after valiant debating, the cause was won in 
the General Conference of 1872, and laymen, elected in 
anticipation of that result, were seated at once. It was a 
"grudging concession," only two laymen being permitted 
to each Annual Conference. After several quadrenniums 
of agitation, in 1900 laymen were admitted in equal num- 
ber with the preachers. The discussion in regard to the 
admission of laymen to the Annual Conferences is now go- 
ing forward. 

The cliurcli and its daughters. An institution can 
hardly be considered thoroughly democratic w^hich ignores 
in its governing power more than a majority of its mem- 
bers. It is estimated that five eighths of the members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church are women, approxi- 
mately two and a half million, at least. The General Con- 
ference of 1888 found five women among its delegates, duly 
chosen by five Lay Electoral Conferences, after the manner 
of their brethren. The Conference declared them ineligible. 
The most exciting question of the next three quadrenniums 
concerned the eligibility of women to membership in the 
General Conference. After several defeats it was finally 
settled affirmatively in 1900 and in the present revision 
of the Constitution the clergy and laity are equally repre- 
sented and women are universally recognized as eligible to 
membership in the law-making body of the church. The 
General Conference of 1920 adopted the granting of licenses 
to women as local preachers, and appointed a commission 



98 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 

to consider the question of admitting women to full min- 
isterial rights. 

Tlie time limit. "In order that the unity of the de- 
nomination might be preserved," it was deemed advisable 
in the early days of the church that the pastors sh9uld 
not continue longer than two years in one appointment. 
This was the rule in 1804; in 1864 the term was length- 
ened to three years, in 1888 to five years, and in 1900 the 
time limit was removed altogether. The appointments are 
made or renewed annually. The limit of the term of the 
district superintendent, formerly called the presiding elder, 
was removed in 1920. 

Tlie districting of the bishops. The itinerant gen- 
eral superintendency, like the time limit of the pastorate, 
in the early days was considered essential to the unity and 
progress of the church. The bishops in their constant 
journeys to and fro were the shuttles weaving the fabric of 
the church. In the permanently settled conditions of the 
country and of the church organization, and in the growth 
of great cities, there is a need of another sort — the up- 
building on strong foundations of the manifold enter- 
prises of the modern church. The desirability of a con- 
tinuous administration of the bishop, as well as that of 
the pastor, has become increasingly apparent and resulted 
in the development of residential areas, each comprising 
a number of Conferences, over which the bishop in resi- 
dence presides, as assigned by the General Conference. 
There are thirty-eight of these episcopal areas, twenty-one 
in the United States and seventeen in foreign lands. 

The moral influence of the church. "By their fruits 
ye shall know them." A test of the genuineness of the 
churches religious life is in its attitude upon questions of 
great moral reform. The founder of Methodism was a 
pioneer in social service. The historian Green regards 
the abolition of slavery as one of the results of the Methodist 
Revival and of the new philanthropy which it inspired. 
Wesley's emphasis upon personal* salvation and his teach- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZATION 99 



ing of the equality of all men before God laid the founda- 
tion anew for the humanitarianism of our time. His op- 
position to slavery was unequivocal; Whitefield, on the 
other hand, owned slaves in Georgia and defended the 
ownership with Old Testament illustrations. 

The early preachers in America were emancipationists; 
Philip Gatch and Freeborn Garrettson set free the slaves 
who came into their possession. The Conferences cen- 
sured the ownership of slaves. But the institution was 
so "wrought into the fabric of the community" that even 
the ultra-abolitionism of Dr. Coke was forced to give way 
before the laws against emancipation in the South. There 
had long been two parties in the church, the one regarding 
slavery as intrinsically a sin, the other finding convincing 
grounds for its defense, when the crisis of 1844 divided 
the church. The difference in the attitude of the two 
branches toward the colored race is one of the main ob- 
stacles in the way of unification to-day. 

The Methodist societies in America as early as 1780 
put the seal of their disapproval upon the manufacture of 
spirituous liquors; in 1783 the Conference urged "the 
putting away of the evil." Again and again has the church 
declared intemperance a sin and a disaster to the indi- 
vidual and to society and preached total abstinence for the 
person and legal prohibition for the nation. Methodists 
have been leaders in the reform, and in the organizations 
that have promoted it. Since 1888 the church has had a 
permanent committee or society on temperance, now en- 
titled the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public 
Morals, with headquarters in Washington. 

John Wesley laid the broad foundation* for the social 
service of Methodism when he affirmed that it is of the 
very nature of the Christian "to do good to all men." To 
"all sorts and conditions of men" the Methodist Episcopal 
Church is ministering throughout the world in every kind 
of social and individual betterment. "The Social Creed 
of the Churches," advocating for industrial workers the 



100 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



right to adequate wages and protection from injury and 
hardship in hours and conditions of lahor, was in its 
origin a Methodist document, now almost universally 
adopted by Protestantism. The Methodist Federation for 
Social Service, organized in 1907, gives special attention- 
to the problems of industrial reconstruction. The spirit of 
social service pervades all the organizations of the church. 

Tlie organized activities of tlie church. Wherever 
the church has discovered a need, it has promptly hewed 
out for itself a channel through which it might reach the 
need. Each *'connectional society," formed by the General 
Conference, owes its existence to the church's eagerness 
to meet efficiently some new opportunity of service. Fol- 
lowing the example and precept of that ardent book-lover 
and maker of books, John Wesley, the Methodists in Amer- 
ica early set up the publishing business and The Methodist 
Book Concern began its beneficent and prosperous career 
in 1789. 

The young church with fiery evangelism in its heart was 
always a missionary; when the svvift expansion of its 
success in wanning converts opened wider doors of op- 
portunity, the need for a steady and certain support for 
the work led in 1819 to the formation of the Missionary 
and Bible Society, which in 1836 transferred its Bible De- 
partment to the American Bible Society. The need for 
church edifices for the many new congregations, especially 
on the frontier, called into service in 1865 the Board of 
Church Extension. By the General Conference of 1904 a 
realignment of the Missionary Society and the Board of 
Church Extension was initiated, resulting in 1907 in the 
Board of Foreign Missions and the Board of Home Missions 
and Church Extension. 

With the close of the Civil War the piteous needs of the 
emancipated race led to the formation of the Freedman's 
Aid Society in 1866, now called the Board of Education 
for Negroes. The gathering of funds for the education of 
Methodist children, as a part of the Centennial celebra- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZATION 



101 



tion, prompted the organization in 1868 of the Board of 
Education, which promotes the many educational institu- 
tions under Methodist auspices in the United States, and 
provides aid for needy students. One of the earliest 
measures of the church was in the interest of the 
preachers who were disabled or retired and of those de- 
pendent upon them, and necessarily so, as the stipend 
which they had received in active service was pitifully 
small. Such provision continued through the Preachers* 
Aid Society, and other methods, but no connectional so- 
ciety united these enterprises until the formation in 1908 
of the Board of Conference Claimants. 

The Epworth League, the organization of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church **of the young people, for the young 
people, by the young people," and the Junior League for the 
children, developed in 1889, are administered by the Board 
of the Epworth League. In 1910 the Board of Sunday 
Schools took and enlarged the place held for many years 
by the Sunday School Union. The General Deaconess 
Board was formed in 1900, to supervise the deaconess work 
which was not covered by the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society. The most recent creation of the General Confer- 
ence is the Board of Hospitals and Homes, established in 
1920 "for the promotion and general supervision of an 
advisory character for all hospitals, homes, or other organ- 
izations and institutions for the care of the sick, incurables, 
and other dependents," conducted under Methodist auspices. 
All these boards report to the General Conference and in 
most instances thefr membership and executive officers 
are chosen by that body. 

The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, founded in 
1869, and the Woman's Home Missionary Society, founded 
in 1880, also report to the General Conference, and exist 
under its laws, but each elects its own officers and its mem- 
bership is secured by the payment of an annual fee. 

With the multiplication of these agencies of the churchy 
each growing rapidly in. its volume of business and the 



102 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



eagerness of its appeal for support and expansion, the Gen- 
eral Conference of 1920 recognized the need of tying the 
varied interests together, so as to secure "one world-pro- 
gram of missionary, educational, and benevolent activities, 
one unified financial policy and appeal, the elimination of 
duplication of all activities, and a larger measure of 
economy and efficiency/' To this end the Council of Boards 
of Benevolence was instituted, consisting of fifteen bishops, 
a group of representatives of each of the church boards, 
including the corresponding secretary, and a ministerial 
and a lay delegate from each area in the United States. 
This Council has an Executive Committee and a Committee 
of Conservation and Advance, the latter being the promot- 
ing agency for the support of the benevolent boards. All 
the funds contributed for the work of these boards are re- 
ceived by the treasurer of the Council and distributed to 
the boards. 

Tlie growth of Methodism. When in 1784 the Method- 
ist Episcopal Church began its independent life, its 83 
preachers ministered to about 15,000 members. In 1920 
this branch of Methodism alone had over 20,000 preachers 
and more than 4,000,000 members. From the early Method- 
ist Societies, initiated by Philip Embury and Robert Straw- 
bridge, which in 1773 numbered 10 preachers and 1,160 
members, have come in all the divisions of Methodism in 
the United States over 40,000 preachers and nearly 8,000,- 
000 members. 

Ecumenical Methodism in 1919 counted 55,589 preachers 
and nearly 10,000,000 members. The evangelistic spirit 
of Methodism has carried its teachings all around the 
world and it is truly said in this twentieth century that 
the sun never sets upon the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Collateral Reading 

Townsend, et al., The New History of Metltodism, Vol. II, 
Book IV, Chapter III, III, IV. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZATION 103 



Buckley, J. M., Constitutional and Parliamentary History 

of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Chapters I-XXIX. 
The Methodist Year Book. 

Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. How was the Methodist Episcopal Church governed at 
first? What was the ''Binding Minute"? 

2. Show the effect of the spirit of democracy in the de- 
velopment of the organization of the new church. 

3. What are the Restrictive Rules? 

4. What has been the gradual change in regard to the 
admission of women to the General Conference? in regard 
to the ''time limit" of the pastorate and of the district 
superintendency? in regard to the areas of administration 
of the bishops? 

5. What has been the influence of Methodism upon the 
great moral questions of the nation and of society? 

6. Into what definite channels has the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church poured its organized life? 

7. What has been the growth of Methodisni? 



CHAPTER XV 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH 

The spirit and the method. The characteristic phrase 
used often to classify among the branches of Protestantism 
the church founded by John Wesley in America is "Method- 
ist fire." The evangelistic passion, which carried the early 
itinerants through forest and flood, privation and peril, to 
win men's allegiance to Christ, the Saviour of men, and 
which in revival and camp meeting sometimes exhibited an 
emotionalism startling to the sedate and self-repressing 
followers of less fervent sects, is indeed essential to the true 
Methodist type. 

That to this characteristic is added another not always 
found in association with it is most significant of the great- 
ness of the church, for few institutions can show so highly 
systematized and completely organized a framework. "All 
the body fitly framed and knit together through that which 
every joint supplieth, according to the working in due 
measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the 
body unto the building up of itself in love.'* "Each several 
building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple 
in the Lord" (Ephesians 4. 16; 2. 21). 

The very name "Methodist," given in derision to the ar- 
dent lads of the Holy Club at Oxford University because of 
their systematic method of study and benevolence carefully 
laid down by Charles and John Wesley, indicates a persist- 
ent trait of the movement which they initiated. These young 
college men, so enthusiastic in their religious life that they 
were unjustly regarded as fanatics and urged by their kin- 
dred to curb their zeal, were "precise and regular— methodi- 

104 



I 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH 105 

cal — in their conduct and in the disposing of their time." 
These characteristics were wrought into the foundations of 
Methodism. We may even go a step farther back and dis- 
cover in the wise and firm system with which in the 
Epworth rectory Susannah Wesley nobly administered her 
household the source of the orderliness of mind and habit 
which characterized her sons. 

The Discipline. In the indispensable volume of Method- 
ist faith and practice which we call "Doctrines and Dis- 
cipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church," a book whose 
contents have been affirmed or amended every four years 
since the first General Conference of 1784, and which re- 
tains in large measure the spirit and counsel of Mr. Wesley, 
the description of the structure of the Church may be found. 
Here are recorded its Articles of Religion and its General 
Rules, the articles relating to its government, and the legis- 
lation which has constituted its various institutions. Like 
a vein of gold in the rock, here and there may be discovered 
Mr. Wesley's own words of spiritual and practical wisdom. 

The local church. When in a community a group of 
persons of the Methodist persuasion desires to form a 
church, the district superintendent, or a preacher under 
his direction, may organize it by calling them together, re- 
ceiving them into membership by probation, or by let- 
ter or on profession of faith, and appointing among them 
such church officers as are required. Thus instituted, a 
church, or a group of small churches, becomes a ''pastoral 
charge," related to the Annual Conference within whose 
bounds it is situated. A pastor is thereafter annually ap- 
pointed to it by the bishop presiding at that Annual 
Conference. 

The Quarterly Conference. The connectional adminis- 
trative body of the local church, or pastoral charge, is the 
''Quarterly Conference," over which the district superintend- 
ent presides and which is composed of traveling ministers, 
local preachers, exhorters, stewards, class leaders, trustees, 
superintendents of Sunday schools, presidents of Epworth 



106 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



League Chapters, superintendents of Junior Leagues, presi- 
dents of Ladies' Aid Societies, and of Home and Foreign 
Missionary Auxiliary Societies, and deaconesses within the 
charge. The Quarterly Conference has oversight of all the 
organizations and interests of the local church and Sunday 
school, and appoints committees to carry forward its busi- 
ness. Its order of procedure, in the interrogative form 
which was a favorite method of Mr. Wesley in the United 
Societies, contains forty-three questions, to be asked by the 
district superintendent and answered in the various reports, 
covering every phase of the church's activity. 

The trustees and the stewards. To the trustees, not 
fewer than three or more than nine persons, elected by bal- 
lot by the adult members of the church, are committed the 
interests of the church property, under the approval of the 
Quarterly Conference, and in accordance with the laws of 
the State. Careful rules are laid down in regard to the 
purchasing of land, the erection of church and parsonage, 
the mortgaging or selling of the church's real estate. 

The stewards, not fewer than three nor more than thirty- 
one, are nominated by the pastor and approved by the 
Quarterly Conference. Their duties primarily relate to the 
support of the pastor and the care of the poor. 

The ofiieial board. The Quarterly Conference organizes 
its members into the official board of the church, m.eeting 
monthly with the pastor as chairman. This board elects its 
own vice-chairman, its secretary, and two treasurers, for 
current expenses and for benevolences. It appoints com- 
mittees on finance, music, care of the property, and such 
other matters as require attention. 

The Finance Committee prepares the budget for current 
expenses and for the amount to be given for benevolences, 
as apportioned to the local church by the denominational 
authorities. With the approval of the official board it 
arranges for the annual "every-member canvass," to secure 
pledges of weekly payments to meet the financial obliga- 
tions of the church. 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH 107 



The District Conference. Provision is also made in 
the legislation for holding District Conferences, covering 
for the group of churches located in a District of an Annual 
Conference some of the functions of the Quarterly Confer- 
ence and aiding in promoting special evangelistic and finan- 
cial efforts. These Conferences are not often held in the 
Eastern States; they are employed in the South and West, 
and are of special value in some of the mission fields. 

The Annual Conferences. The "traveling preachers" 
are organized by the General Conference into Annual Con- 
ferences, whose sessions they are required to attend. The 
General Conference may not authorize an Annual Confer- 
ence of fewer than twenty-five members. There are now 
one hundred and thirty-four Annual Conferences, of which 
one hundred and six are in the United States. 

A bishop, usually the bishop in residence in the area in 
which an Annual Conference occurs, presides at its sessions, 
forms its districts, and, in consultation with the district 
superintendents, fixes the appointments of the preachers. 
The bishops at their semi-annual meeting assign one of 
their number to preside at each Annual Conference within 
the ensuing half-year. 

The series of questions, constituting the order of business 
of an Annual Conference, covers the status of its member- 
ship. Statistical and financial reports from every pastoral 
charge are recorded. The district superintendents describe 
their field of service. The benevolent boards of the church 
have a hearing. Members are received on trial, examined 
in the Course of Study, covering four years, as ordered by 
the General Conference, and finally obtain full rights in 
the Conference. The ordination of deacons and elders at 
the hands of the bishop usually takes place during the 
session of the Annual Conference. 

A constitutional amendment to admit laymen to member- 
ship in the Annual Conferences, one from each pastoral 
charge, to share in the sessions of Friday and Saturday of 
Conference week, is approved by the General Conference of 



108 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



1920, subject to the ratification of the Annual and Lay 
Electoral Conferences. 

Collateral Reading 

Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Einscopal Church/ 
The Methodist Year Book. 

Fitchett, W. H., Wesley and His Century, Book IV, Chapter 
XIIL 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. What have been the two outstanding characteristics 
of Methodism? Where do you find their first appearance? 

2. What is the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church and what is its origin? 

3. If you wished to organize a Methodist Episcopal church 
in a new community, how would you proceed? 

4. What ofiicers are chosen for the administration of the 
church of which you are a member? 

5. What is the membership and what are the functions of 
the Quarterly Conference? of the District Conference? of 
the Annual Conference? 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH 
(Concluded) 

Mission Conferences. When a mission in the home or 
foreign field reaches sufficient strength, the General Con- 
ference constitutes it a Mission Conference, having the 
powers of an Annual Conference, except the right to vote 
on constitutional changes and to send delegates to the 
General Conference. The superintendent of a Mission Con- 
ference, appointed by the bishop having supervision over 
it, has general charge of its interests, representing its con- 
dition to the bishop and to the Missionary Board concerned 
in its promotion. There are sixteen Mission Conferences 
and twelve missions. Of these ten are in the United States 
or its territories. 

Central Conferences. In the foreign mission field a 
group of Annual and Mission Conferences may with the 
approval of the General Conference form themselves into a 
Central Conference, meeting once in four years as a dele- 
gated body with a ratio of representation fixed by itself. 
This Conference with increasing powers considers the edu- 
cational, evangelistic, medical, industrial, and publishing 
interests of its field, and the vernacular courses of study. 
It may, under careful limitations, adapt the Discipline to 
meet national conditions. An Executive Board acts for the 
Conference ad interim. Central Conferences are now 
authorized for Europe, Eastern Asia, Southern Asia, South- 
eastern Asia, South Africa, and Latin America. 

A Commission, consisting of the bishops of the foreign 
fields and nine other members of their choosing, is investi- 
gating the whole subject of Central Conferences, which are 
a recent innovation. 

Lay Electoral Conferences. Since 1872 laymen have 

109 



110 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



been admitted to membership in the General Conference, 
and since 1900 in equal numbers with the preachers. For 
the purpose of electing the lay delegates and for expressing 
the mind of the laity on constitutional questions, the Lay 
Electoral Conferences meet quadrennially, at the time of 
the Annual Conferences just preceding the General Con- 
ference. Each pastoral charge in an Annual Conference 
sends one delegate to the Lay Electoral Conference 
in the same territory, and provides for a reserve delegate, 
chosen by the adult members of the charge. The lay dele- 
gates to the General Conference, elected by ballot, must be 
at least twenty-five years of age, and for five years members 
of the local church. 

The General Conference. Great are the changes in the 
church and the nation since Freeborn Garrettson was sent 
by Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, "like an arrow, from north to 
south, and directed to send messengers to the right and 
left, and to gather all the preachers together at Baltimore, 
on Christmas Eve," 1784. Of the eighty-one preachers, sixty 
were present at this important Conference, for the organiza- 
tion of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At its General 
Conference of 1920, meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, over eight 
hundred delegates were present, men and women, laymen 
and ministers, from all parts of the world, representing 
over four million church members. These delegates were 
elected by the Annual and Lay Electoral Conferences during 
the preceding year. 

In the Annual Conferences the number of delegates to 
the General Conference is in proportion to the membership 
in the Conferences; a constitutional amendment changing 
the minimum representation from 1:15 to 1:45 and the 
maximum from 1:45 to 1:90, now awaits the ratification of 
the Annual Conferences. The ministerial delegate must be 
an elder, at least twenty-five years of age, a member of an 
Annual Conference for four successive years, and belong to. 
the Annual Conference which elects him. Three minis- 
terial and three lay reserve delegates are also provided. 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH 111 



Since the first delegated General Conference met in 1812, 
the sessions are held every fourth year, beginning at ten 
o'clock in the morning of the first secular day of the month 
of May. The bishops are the presiding officers, in such 
order as they themselves choose. The arrangements for 
the meeting of the General Conference are in the hands 
of a Commission provided by the previous General Con- 
ference. 

The General Conference has full power to make rules 
and regulations for the church, provided that it does not 
alter the Articles of Religion or the General Rules, or 
"do away episcopacy," or divert the produce of The Book 
Concern and the Chartered Fund from the benefit of the 
Conference claimants. Two-thirds of the delegates con- 
stitute its quorum. Any amendment of the constitution 
requires the concurrent approval by two-thirds vote of the 
Annual and Lay Electoral Conferences and the General 
Conference. The General Conference fixes the boundaries 
of the Annual and Mission Conferences, elects the bishops 
and fixes their residences and residential areas, elects cer- 
tain executive officers of most of the boards of the church 
and appoints their managers, chooses the editors of the 
church publications, the publishing agents, and the Book 
Committee, and forms such commissions as may be required. 

Membership in the church. "All persons expressing a 
desire to lead a godly life may be received into preparatory 
membership," a period of indefinite length, during which 
instruction is given by the pastor or class leader in the 
principles of the Christian life and the polity of the church. 
All baptized members who give evidence of the correctness 
of their faith and their knowledge of the rules of the church 
are received into full membership. All baptized children 
are considered preparatory members of the church and 
organized into classes by the pastor for instruction and 
guidance until they are ready for full membership. Pro- 
vision is made for the reception of members from other de- 
nominations, for the transfer of membership from one 



112 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



church to another, and for affiliated membership, in case 
of students absent from the home church. 

Class meetings. When the early Methodist Societies 
were formed in England, Mr. Wesley found it helpful to 
divide the members into groups of eleven with a leader, 
whose task it was at first to collect from his group the weekly 
penny for the poor. He soon discerned in this method an in- 
strument by which to keep in touch with the growth in 
grace of each member, "a method," he says, '*for which we 
have cause to bless God ever since.*' This practice of class 
meetings helped to conserve the doctrines and spirit of 
Methodism, to strengthen Christian experience and Chris- 
tian fellowship. The Discipline advises the formation of 
classes of not more than twenty members, whose leader shall 
be "careful to inquire how every member of his class pros- 
pers; not only how each person outwardly observes the Rules, 
but also how he grows in the knowledge and love of God." 

Specialized service. Among the orders of service rec- 
ognized by the laws of the church are the exhorters, 
licensed by their pastors to hold meetings for prayer and 
exhortation; the local preachers, who have received from 
the District or Quarterly Conference an annual license 
to preach; and the deaconesses, who have devoted their 
lifework wholly to "the Christlike service of doing good" 
and after two years of preparation have been duly licensed 
and consecrated to their task. 

The ministry. The qualifications 'of a candidate for the 
ministry are carefully set down in the Discipline and 
Mr. Wesley's own Rules for a Preacher's Conduct are still 
in force. No clearer exposition of the character of Meth- 
odism may be found than in the many paragraphs of the 
Discipline devoted to this vital subject. 

In the regular process of entering the ministry the can- 
didate is received on trial by an Annual Conference; 
after two successive years in the work assigned him by 
the Conference and satisfactory completion of two years 
of the Conference Course of Study he may be admitted 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH 113^. 



into full membership in the Conference. He is constituted 
a deacon by the election of the Conference and the laying 
on of hands of the bishop. This admits him to the right 
to perform all of the functions of a minister, except the 
administering of the Lord's Supper. After a further pe- 
riod of two years during which the Course of Study is 
completed, by a similar process he is made an elder with 
the full responsibilities of an ordained minister. This 
regular process for obtaining orders is somewhat modi- 
fied in the case of seminary training or missionary service. 
The local preacher, after completing certain courses of 
study and prescribed periods of service, by election of the 
Annual Conference and the laying on of hands of the 
bishop may be admitted to the orders of deacon and 
elder. 

Tlie district superintendents. The district superin- 
tendents are chosen and appointed by the bishop presid- 
ing in an Annual Conference, annually without limit in 
regard to reappointment, to supervise under a definitely pre- 
scribed schedule the interests of the districts of the Con- 
ference. 

Tlie l)isliops. A bishop is constituted by the election of 
the General Conference and the laying on of hands of 
tliree bishops, or at least one bishop and two elders, and is 
amenable to the General Conference for his conduct in 
the office which lie holds for life. At the age for retire- 
ment from active service he is released from certain duties 
of his office. The duties of a bishop, prescribed in the 
Discipline, relate to the general supervision of the spiritual 
and temporal welfare of the church, the most vital of their 
tasks being the appointment of the pastors and district 
superintendents to their fields of service. 

Th^ judicial administration of tlie cliurcli. Exact 
pTOvision is made by the laws of the church for the trial 
of bishop, preacher, or church member who may be ac- 
cused of any misconduct and for any appeal in such a case, 
indeed, one vof the Rules which may not be amended is 



114 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



that which provides that the General Conference shall not 
deprive any member of the right of trial and appeal. 

Collateral Reading 

Buckley, J. M., Constitutional and Parliamentary History 
of tJie Methodist Episcopal Church, Chapters I-XVIII. 

Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

Qlt:stions for Thought and Discussion 

1. When a group of churches is established in some ter- 
ritory of the foreign field, how are they brought into the 
system of Conferences? 

2. Describe the recent development of Central Con- 
ferences. 

3. What provision is made for the election of lay dele- 
gates to the General Conference and expressing lay opinion 
in church matters? 

4. What are the functions of the General Conference? 

5. How may a person become a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church? How may a person become a minister 
in this church? 

6. How are the district superintendents appointed? 

7. What are the provisions of the Discipline in regard 
to the bishops? 

8. What are the laws of the church concerning a bishop, 
preacher, or member charged with misconduct? 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE OF THE METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

The beginnings of missions in the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Methodism in America was itself, for many 
years, in a certain sense, a mission. In the half century 
between Philip Embury's first preaching to the little group 
in New York and the organization of the Missionary and 
Bible Society in 1819, itinerants and missionaries traveled 
the "Long Road" over the North American continent, 
carrying the spirit and teachings of Methodism into the 
twenty-one States and the wide-spreading territories of the 
young republic and into "the wilds of Canada." "Meth- 
odism is a missionary system. Yield the missionary 
spirit and you yield the very life-blood of the cause," said 
John Emory to the General Conference of 1820. It is 
impossible that the church founded by John Wesley should 
not regard the world as its parish. Three years after 
the death of Francis Asbury, its missionary fervor ex- 
pressed itself in a society which has now completed a 
century of service "in all the world." 

Like a spiritual romance reads the story of John Stewart, 
the mulatto, whose drunken orgies were driving him to 
suicide, when he was arrested by the sound of singing 
and drawn into a Methodist meeting. This was in 1816 
in Marietta, Ohio. Becoming a new man in Christ Jesus, 
he gave his life to his Master's service. He believed that 
voices were calling him whither he knew not. By wood- 
land trails through dense virgin forests he followed the 
leading to Upper Sandusky where lived the Wyandot In- 
dians. Here the voices were stilled, as long ago the Star 
rested over Bethlehem. Finding an escaped slave who had 

115 



116 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



been a Methodist, he made him his interpreter. Gathering 
the Indians about him by his melodious singing, Stewart 
told them the story of Jesus. The marvelous patience with 
which he bore ill treatment and privation was a sign to the 
Indians that **the Great Spirit had sent him." Soon there 
were converts among the sons of the forest. Between-the- 
Logs and other chiefs learned the way of peace. The 
amazing results of John Stewart's preaching kindled en- 
thusiasm in the church, and local missionary societies 
sprang up to provide support for such marvelous enter- 
prises, notably that "within the bounds of the Philadelphia 
Conference," whijch maintained an independent existence 
from 1821 to 1844. 

The organization of tlie Missionary and Bible So- 
ciety. To the Re\. Nathan Bangs, who had spent seven 
years of pioneer ministry among the Indians and immi- 
grants of the wilderness regions of Canada, the news of 
John Stewart's labors among the Wyandots came with 
special appeal. He had long felt the need of an Organiza- 
tion for the support and extension of such work. With 
his friend, the Rev. Laban Clark, he brought the matter 
in 1818 to the New York Preachers* Meeting, of which he 
was then chairman. A committee was appointed to draw 
up a constitution, and on April 5, 1819, in Second (after- 
ward Forsyth) Street Church, New York, this committee 
reported at a public meeting and the Missionary and Bible 
Society was formed. While the Society knew **no geo- 
graphical limits to the fields of its operations, its immediate 
task was to send the light of evangelical truth among the 
scattered population of the exterior parts of our country, as 
well as am.ong the aborigines of our wilderness." The pres- 
ent distinction between home and foreign missions was not 
then vividly in mind. Those were foreign missions which 
ministered to people of foreign tongue, as the French in 
Louisiana, the Indians in Canada and the West. The 
Fourth Annual Report declared that the young Society 
"gives no preference to color, to nation or country, but 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 



117 



directs its plans of benevolence to all those tribes of men 
who are destitute of the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the 
means of salvation." In the quaint language of a mission- 
ary sermon in 1823, it sought **to spread a moral luster 
over our guilty globe and to advance the universal triumph, 
of the Redeemer's Scepter." 

Early enterprises. The heroic labors of John Stewart 
and his successors, James B. Finley, the lovely Harriet 
Stubbs, Jason Lee, and others, among the Indians, those 
of the ministers sent by the Society to Georgia and South 
Carolina, to preach to slaves, the extension of Methodist in- 
fluence among the French in Louisiana and Canada, among 
the Spaniards in the Southwest, among the Germans in 
the Central West, continued the Society's ministry in this 
country, v/hile in 1832 its foreign work was initiated 
upon the shores of Africa. 

The progress of the church around the world may be seen 
from the following dates of the beginnings of missions in 
foreign lands: Africa, 1832; South America, 1836; China, 
1847; India, 1856; Japan and Mexico, 1873; Korea and 
Malaysia, 1885; the Philippines, 1889; while fhe church 
extension into Europe began with Germany in 1844, pass- 
ing into the Scandinavian countries and Bulgaria in 1853- 
57, into Italy in 1872, France and Russia in 1907, North. 
Africa in 1908, and Spain in 1919. 

New alignments. In 1828 the church in Canada, be- 
coming independent, assumed the Indian work within its 
borders. In the division of 1844 a large share of the 
remainder fell to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
In 1836 the Society transferred its Bible Department to 
the American Bible Society and was henceforth known as 
*'The Missionary Society," until by the action of the Gen- 
eral Conference of 1904 it was divided on January 1, 1907, 
into the Board of Foreign Missions and the Board of Home 
Missions and Church Extension, thus including also the 
former Church Extension Society, which since 1864 had 
aided in building seventeen thousand churches. The per- 



118 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 

sonnel of these Boards is appointed by the General Con- 
ference, which also elects their corresponding secretaries. 
The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society was founded in 
1869, especially to serve the women and children of non- 
Christian lands. Similarly, the Woman's Home Mission- 
ary Society in 1880 began its ministry to those in need 
w^ithin our borders. 

The financial progress. The receipts of the Mission- 
ary and Bible Society in 1820 were $823.04; the income 
of the Board of Foreign Missions in the year 1919, at the 
end of the century, was $5,526,819.50; that of the Board of 
Home Missions and Church Extension was $5,155,933; the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in the Jubilee of its 
half century in the same year received approximately 
$2,000,000, and the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
nearly $1,800,000. What had been the steps in this large 
advance? The growth in church membership (in 1820, 
256,881 m^embers with 904 preachers; in 1920, 4,175,502 
members and 20,156 preachers) and the increase in national 
wealth, in which the Methodists of the country increas- 
ingly shared (in 1850 estimated $7,135,780,000; in 1916 
over $228,000,000,000), are factors in the case. But there 
have been other elements in the gain. 

"A million for missions." At its annual meeting in 
1884 the Missionary Society faced the appalling needs of 
the hjome and foreign fields with hardly more than $700,000 
to distribute, the total gifts of some eighteen hundred 
thousand members, who had contributed an average of 
thirty-nine cents to the cause. The situation fired the heart 
of the new corresponding secretary, Chaplain Charles Card- 
well McCabe. It had been the grandfather of the Chap- 
lain whose influence as class leader upon John Stewart 
in 1816 had aided in the romantic beginnings of the Mis- 
sionary Society. With his magnetic enthusiasm and tire- 
less courage Chaplain McCabe sent the cry, **A Million for 
Missions" throughout the church. A steady gain resulted, 
but not until 1887 was the goal reached, with the average 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 



119 



gift of nearly fifty cents a member, an average not con- 
tinuously maintained during the years that followed. 

Tlie Laymen's Missionary Movement. A further stim- 
ulus to missionary achievement was given to the church 
in 1908 by the organization of the Laymen's Missionary 
Movement, specifically educational and inspirational, which 
held hundreds of conventions throughout the country, sur- 
veyed the fields, to ascertain the men and means needed 
for world evangelization, and increased the giving of the 
church for this supreme task. Its special benefit to the 
church has been the inauguration of the "every-member- 
canvass" plan of church finances, now^ so generally and 
beneficially adopted throughout the country. 

The Centenary of missions. Am.erican Methodism cele- 
brated the close of its fi^rst century of missionary service 
in organized form by the look forward, rather than back- 
w^ard, and by the careful building of its world program 
for the century before it. Surveys of the whole field at 
home and abroad and the apportionment of the financial 
task on a five-years basis, the development of a League of 
Intercessors four hundred thousand strong, the conduct 
of a campaign of Christian stewardship, in which two 
hundred thousand tithing stewards were enrolled, and the 
appeal of the Life Service Department to thousands of 
young people — these great enterprises occupied the thought 
and prayer and labor of the church in the centennial year. 
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, joined in all 
phases of the campaign and shared in the celebration in 
Columbus, Ohio, in June and July, 1919, where missionary 
exhibits, pageants, addresses, and life plays gave the w^orld 
in miniature and brought the missionary task close to 
the heart and mind and soul of the Church. 

As a result of the surveys of the field, the sum of 
$40,000,000 or $8,000,000 a year for five years, was fixed 
as the immediate need for each Board of Missions, and the 
War Reconstruction service on which the church had en- 
tered demanded $25,000,000 more in the same period; the 



120 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



total of ''Centenary askings'* was, therefore, $105,000,000, 
while the Church South desired $35,000,000 for the five 
years. The call to the stewardship of prayer, the steward- 
ship of life, the stewardship of possessions culminated in 
a summons to place pledges for these vast sums of money 
upon the altar of self-sacrifice, to meet the world emer- 
gency. In May, 1919, these pledges were made, and it was 
reported to the General Conference of 1920 that they reached 
$112,823,977, while the Church South gained its goal. The 
beginning of the payment of these pledges in the year 
ending in October, 1919, increased the income of each 
missionary board approximately 175 per cent., and new life 
manifested itself in all the mission fields and in the church 
at home, refreshed by new visions of service, new expe- 
riences of sacrifice. The complete success of the Centenary 
is conditional upon the full payment of its pledges within 
the five years. 

The extraordinary progress of the Centenary stimulated 
all branches of Protestant Christianity in America. Never 
has the salvation of the world for which Christ died been 
so vividly upon the mind and so appealingly upon the heart 
of the Christian Church. 

Collateral Reading 

Reid and Gracey, Methodist Episcopal Missions, Vol. I, 
Part MI. 

Taylor and Luccock, The Christian Crusade for World De- 
mocracy. 

Fahs, Sophia L., Red, Yellow, and Black, Part I. 
Stevenson, R. T. Selected Chapters from The History of 

the Wyandot Mission. 
Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. V, LXIX. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. Show how the early Methodist societies in America 
were conducting both home and in a sense ^'foreign" mis- 
sions. 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 



121 



2. Whose evangelistic work among the Indians led to the 
organization of the Missionary and Bible Society? 

3. How have the early missionary enterprises been dis- 
tributed among the branches of Methodism in America? 

4. What has been the world-wide progress of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church? 

5. What great movements have stimulated its financial 
missionary advance? 

6. In w^hat great lines of achievement has the Centenary 
led the church forward? 



CHAPTER XVIII 



HOME MISSIONS AND CHURCH EXTENSION 

In no phase of the church's enterprise are the enlarging 
Ideals of its ministry to all life and all of life more 
evident than in the expansion of its missionary service 
in the United States. The Board of Home Missions and 
Church Extension, to which in 1907 was committed that 
part of the work of the Missionary Society which v/as in 
the United States, was in 1916 entirely reorganized into 
five departments, covering the varied phases of its great 
task — to win America for Christ. 

The Department of Churcli Extension. In 1856 Iowa 
Methodism developed the first Church Extension Society, 
to provide places of worship for early settlers; this the 
General Conference of 1864 made a church-wide society. 
In the forty-one years of its existence over $9,000,000 went 
to the building of fifteen thousand churches, located on 
the frontier and among colored and mountain communities 
in the South. The Department of Church Extension 
through its Loan Fund, its Opportunity Fund, and special 
donations, is putting new life into enterprises all over 
the land. A Bohemian Church in Cleveland, a Mexican 
Church in Arizona, colored churches in Brooklyn and 
Georgia, community centers in a dozen large cities, no- 
tably Churches of all Nations in New York and Boston, 
illustrate the variety of its aid. The Bureau of Architec- 
ture, maintained in cooperation with the Board of Sunday 
Schools, gives expert service, for which in a single year 
there were over six hundred applications. The "shack," 
built for a few hundred dollars in frontier days, has been 
superseded by the most eflicient and attractive type of 

122 



HOME MISSIONS 



123 



church building, costing thousands of dollars and minister- 
ing to all phases of community life. Grants are now made 
for that essential service, the development of Wesley Foun- 
dations, to meet the religious and social needs of the 
thousands of Methodist students in State universities. 

The Department of City Work. In 1918 a full survey 
of eighty cities was scientifically made and a program was 
laid down, covering (1) a great institutional church in the 
heart of the city; (2) churches in industrial communities; 
(3) the Americanization and evangelization of foreign- 
speaking peoples; (4) the strengthening of residential and 
suburban churches; (5) the fostering of "Good-Will Indus- 
tries." The need of trained leadership for this varied 
service, especially among the foreign-born, is being partly 
met by subsidies to the theological seminaries which main- 
tain courses in missions. The Good-Will Industries, con- 
ducted for many years in Boston, have been adopted in a 
score of cities, bringing opportunity for self-support to the 
poor and the handicapped; this ifiovement is pervaded with 
intense evangelism and closely bound to the church. Thus 
the progressive program, initiated long ago by the City 
Societies and promoted by the National City Evangeliza- 
tion Union (1890-1912), is being carried forward to meet 
the complex problems of great communities with the gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ, interpreted in the terms of modern 
life. A Council of Cities brings together annually the 
leaders in these City Societies, the -first of which was 
incorporated in New York in 1866. 

The Department of Rural Work. To advance the 
rural church to the highest grade of spirituality and serv- 
ice, whether on the pleasant, but stagnant countryside, 
among the colored settlements, the Cape Cod fishing vil- 
lages, the Italian farming groups, or the Spanish-American 
adobes of the Southwest, very swiftly new ideals of min- 
istry have been made into programs; model building plans 
have been circulated for church and social centers, dis- 
tricts have been stimulated and organized to lift the level 



124 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



of their village enterprises, rural church institutes and 
courses in colleges and seminaries are training leaders for 
country service. Rapid progress toward an adequate rural 
Christian life is assured. 

The Department of Frontier Work. No longer asso- 
ciated merely with the expansion of the West, the frontier 
is now defined as "any regrouping of population, by which 
the religious beliefs and practices thereof are dislocated." 
The Everglades of Florida, the Italian settlements in the 
Mohawk valley, the oil-towns of Oklahoma, the logging 
camps of the Northwest, the Fortieth Ward of Philadel- 
phia with Hog Island, a sudden migration of Southern 
negroes into Northern cities, industrial communities spring- 
ing up around government works in war time, are thus 
added to the new settlements of the West, to Hawaii, Porto 
Rico, and Alaska, and the Indian reservations, as the field 
of this Department. 

The Department of Evangelism. Interpenetrating all 
the modern methods of community service is the spirit of 
evangelism. To this the Department of Evangelism gives 
^.onstant aid, by conferences, literature, and programs on 
evangelistic work, by "retreats" for ministers and evan- 
gelists, by courses in theological institutions, and by the 
promotion of evangelistic campaigns through services in 
church, shop, factory, camp, and park. Especially does 
it seek to bring the gospel with its social message to indus- 
trial centers, where remedies for social ills, apart from re- 
ligion, are constantly offered. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society. An ally 
of great efficiency is the Woman's Home Missionary Society, 
which in 1880 was "accepted into the family of benevo- 
lences.'* Its first impulse was the compassion for the 
colored women and girls in New Orleans v/hich led Mrs. 
Joseph C. Hartzell, then a young pastor's wife, to bring 
the story of their sufferings to friends in the North. 
Through the Society's schools and missions everywhere 
under the Stars and Stripes, it is teaching the art of 



HOME MISSIONS 



125 



Christian home-making to Oriental girls in California, 
Spanish-American girls in the Southwest, the Spanish girls 
of Porto Rico, colored girls of the Southland, the daugh- 
ters of the Highlanders, to the Indians, to the girls of 
Utah, Alaska, Honolulu. Its missionaries meet the 
immigrants at the ports of the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
Its training schools equip deaconesses and other helpers 
for their varied task. In its hospitals in needy fields they 
serve the sick with healing and uplifting ministries. The 
membership of the Society, over 428,000, in the quadren- 
nium of 1915-1919 gave to its beneficent work and to 
special war service nearly $5,000,000, while its property 
assets are over $3,000,000. Its income in 1920-21 was over 
$2,828,000. 

The General Deaconess Board. In 1916 the General 
Conference coordinated the deaconess enterprises under a 
General Deaconess Board, supervising over eighty deaconess 
Homes, many schools, ten training schools, and twenty-five 
hospitals, representing property valued at over $10,000,000 
and the comforting and evangelizing ministry of nearly 
nine hundred deaconesses to the orphan, the aged, the 
sick, and the city poor. 

"In His Steps." When in Pilgrim's Progress Mr. Stands 
fast came down to the River, with a glance over his earthly 
pilgrimage he said, "I have loved to hear my Lord spoken 
of; and, wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the 
earth, there I have coveted to set my foot, too." The feet 
of the Good Shepherd are ever on the steep and rugged 
mountain pathways, seeking the lost sheep. The church 
in its compassionate ministries to all sorts and conditions 
of men with heart and mind and soul and strength is 
following Him. 

Collateral Reading 

Forsyth and Keeler, Christian Democracy for America. 
Annual Report of the Board of Home Missions and Church 
Extension, 



126 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Annual Report of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, 
The Methodist Year Book. 

Hurst> J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. VI, Chapter 
CXI. 

Questions fob Thought and Discussion 

1. What have been the several boards or societies which 
have carried forward the home missionary work of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church? 

2. What are the Departments of the Board of Home Mis- 
sions and Church Extension? Describe the function of each 
of them. 

3. In what lines of spiritual and social service does the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society contribute to the wel- 
fare of the nation? 

4. With what purpose and by what process does a woman 
become a deaconess of the Methodist Episcopal Church? 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN FOREIGN 

LANDS 

The missionary spirit. When in 1784 Thomas Coke 
crossed the Atlantic Ocean under John Wesley's appoint- 
ment to be superintendent of the Methodist societies in 
America, he relieved the tedium of six weeks at sea by 
reading among other books the life of Francis Xavier 
and that of David Brainerd. As he followed the self- 
denying labors of the great. Saint Francis, he exclaimed: 
**0 for a soul like his! I want the wings of an eagle and 
the voice of a trumpet, that I may proclaim the gospel 
through the East and the West, the North and the South." 
Such was the missionary spirit which pervaded the early so- 
cieties of Methodism, both in England and in the New 
World of America. As in the apostolic church, the mis- 
sionary fervor was a vital part of the Christian's life. 

A world churcli. The ministry of a church thus 
founded could not be bound within provincial limits. Its 
world service, unorganized and organized, has been grow- 
ing with its growth. At the close of its first century of 
missionary achievement the Methodist Episcopal Church 
I' is taking a new measure of its powers. The General Con- 
, ference of 1920, finding in its own membership turbaned 
Hindu Christians, Chinese men and women of spiritual 
fervor, Koreans, filled with the Christian spirit of progress, 
men of Spanish type from South America and the Philip- 
pines, as well as representative Europeans of many na- 
tions, and listening to detailed reports of its service in 
"all the world," came into full consciousness as a world 
: church, 




"One great fellowship of Love 
Throughout the whole, wide world." 
127 



128 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Both the title and the office of "missionary bishop*' were 
discarded; even the word "foreign" became oppressive, the 
word "heathen'' altogether obsolete. Shanghai, Foochow, 
Peking, Seoul, Manila, Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Luckr 
now, Singapore, Capetown, Monrovia, Buenos Ayres, Mexico 
City, Paris, Zurich, Copenhagen became episcopal resi- 
dences, in addition to the twenty-one cities in the United 
States. Thus nearly one half of the bishops were as- 
signed to service across the seas. With broadening vision 
and fresh realization of its "world parish," the church 
dedicated itself anew to win for Jesus Christ the kingship 
of all mankind. 

The Board of Foreign Missions. What have been the 
steps by which the Church has come to this high altar of 
consecration? How has she gained this outlook upon "all 
the world"? The self-denying service of missionaries for 
one hundred years has brought this great result. The 
organization which has sustained them was founded in 
1819, the Missionary and Bible Society, which, however, 
in 1836 transferred its Bible department to the American 
Bible Society, and which since 1907 has carried forward 
its work in foreign lands under the title of the Board of 
Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Let 
us review briefly the church's progress around the world, 
under the guidance of the Board of Foreign Missions. 

Africa, tlie continent of great adventurers for 
Christ. As John Stewart was the forerunner of Home 
Missions in the Methodist Episcopal Church, another 
Negro, Daniel Coker, was the first to place its standards 
in a foreign field, having organized a church on the ship 
Elizabeth in midocean, sailing for Liberia in 1820. Al- 
though the Missionary Society in 1824 urged the bishops 
to appoint missionaries whom it might support in the new 
Republic of Liberia, it was not until 1832 that the first 
candidate, the heroic Melville Beveridge Cox, set sail, 
"athirst for Liberia," where in four months the flame of 
his fervent life burned out. His message to the church. 



CHURCH IN FOREIGN LANDS 



129 



"Let a thousand fall before Africa be given up," found 
swift response, and many a missionary crossed the sea, only 
to succumb to the fatal fever of the African coasts. The 
pioneer missions in darkest Africa were like a candle, 
often flickering, yet never failing to giVe its slender light. 
These were followed by the heroic attempt of William Tay- 
lor, missionary bishop of Africa from 1884 to 1896, to estab- 
lish self-supporting missions. To him the Africans gave 
the name of "The Flaming Torch," and many a dark trail 
through the forests saw the shining of that light. But 
the days of candle and torch are past. Bishop Taylor's 
successor, Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, in twenty years of 
constructive work gave permanence to the illuminating 
influence of the African missions. 

The Board of Foreign Missions maintains work in Li- 
beria, both in the coast towns and "in the heart of Kru 
man's land"; in Portuguese East Africa, where school, 
churcK, and hospital are winning the people from the super- 
stitions of the witch doctors and where industrial school, 
printing press, and mission farm are laying the founda- 
tion of civilization; in Rhodesia, where the Christian influ- 
ence is reaching into a thousand villages; in Angola on 
the West and in the Congo where heroic pioneers have 
opened stations in the forests, to which equally heroic 
missionaries are giving their faithful lives. In Madeira 
the missionaries are patiently laboring in the strongholds 
of Roman Catholicism; and in North Africa, — at Algiers, 
Constantine, Oran, and Tunis, — they are besieging the al- 
most impregnable fortress of Mohammedanism. To com- 
press nearly a century of heroism into a few paragraphs is 
manifestly impossible. 

South. America, the continent of new opportunity. 
The founders of the Missionary Society early turned their 
thoughts to South America. It was a neighbor; its great 
countries were developing into republics akin to our own; 
its Christianity was of a debased type, its paganism wide- 
spread. The educated classes were largely agnostic and 



130 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



religiously lethargic. In 1836 the first missionaries entered 
South America, at Brazil and Argentina. Their efforts 
were restricted by the local authorities to the English- 
speaking residents and it was not until 1867 that preach- 
ing in Spanish was permitted in Argentina. The field in 
which the Methodist Episcopal Church now operates is 
vast and difiicult; Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uru- 
guay, together with Panama and Costa Rica in Central 
America, present an area 4,500 miles long and 1,200 miles 
wide, reaching from sea level to 15,000 feet in height. 
Preaching and teaching have been the lines of service, to 
which medical and industrial work are now added. It is 
due to Protestant missions that a new day of freedom is 
dawning in Latin America, notably in Peru, the last strong- 
hold of religious despotism, where religious liberty has been 
decreed in the very hall which once witnessed the sessions 
of the Spanish Inquisition. These forces of vital Chris- 
tianity are now cooperating in union theological and train- 
ing schools and evangelical literature, to win Latin America 
from its religious lethargy into newness of life. 

Mexico, the turbulent land. Founded by William But- 
ler in 1873, superintended by his son, John W. Butler, from 
1874 to 1918, the Mexican Mission, though in perils oft, 
has steadfastly preached the gospel to a people of per- 
verted faith. The missionaries of Mexico have constant 
experience of wars and rumors of wars, of famine and 
pestilence, of false prophets and persecutions, which our 
Lord foretold when "the gospel of the kingdom shall be 
preached in all the world." Protestant missions have begun 
cooperative work in union enterprises, while each denom- 
ination has a definitely assigned area, maintaining the 
evangelistic spirit through schools, churches, hospitals, and 
the press. 

China, a nation in the making. For more than seventy 
years Methodist missionaries have been doing their part in 
laying the foundations for the new China. This vast 
aggregation of people had long been upon the heart of the 



CHURCH IN FOREIGN LANDS 



131 



church when a young college graduate pleaded with Bishop 
Janes, "Bishop, engage me a place before the mast and my 
own strong hands shall pull me to China and support me 
there." Since 1847, when Judson Collins sailed for his 
heart's desire in China, with Moses C. White — the first 
Methodist missionaries in Asia — the standards of the 
church have been carried from Foochow to Central China, 
to Peking, and over many a province, even to West China, 
forty days' journey from Shanghai. Hundreds of Meth- 
odist schools from primary to university grade have been 
preparing the leaders for China's great future. The Board 
of Foreign Missions, together with the Woman's Foreign 
Missionary Society, has definitely assumed the elementary 
education of the children among eighty million people. 
They share with other Protestant Mission Boards in the 
maintenance of great union universities. Methodist pas- 
tors and evangelists in seven wide-reaching Conferences 
minister to about seventy-five thousand members and pro- 
bationers, gathered into the Christian fold. 

The hospitals, homes, schools, churches, to the value of 
nearly $3,000,000, testify of Him who had compassion on 
the multitude. "What are these among so many?" is the 
constant appeal of the missionaries whom the Master has 
called to break the bread of life for China's four hundred 
millions — one fourth of mankind. 

Collateral Reading 

Reid and Gracey, Methodist Episcopal Missions, 
Taylor and Luccock, The Christian Crusade for World 
Democracy, 

The Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions, 
Bar stow, Methodist Trails in African Jungles, 
Butler, J. W., The History of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in Mexico, 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 
1. Who was "the Foreign Minister" of early Methodism? 



132 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



2. Show how in the General Conference of 1920 the 
Methodist Episcopal Church "realized itself as a world 
church. 

3. By what agency is the foreign work of the church 
carried on and what is the history of its organization? 

4. What has been the story of the church in Africa? in 
South America? in China? in Mexico? 

5. Give the life story of one of the pioneers in each of 
these great fields. 

6. What is the latest news from each field? 



CHAPTER XX 



THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
IN FOREIGN LANDS 
(Concluded) 

India, the burning heart of Asia. "The Indian has a 
genius for spiritual religion." To the ever-seeking heart 
of India the message of the gospel has been brought by. 
missionaries of American Methodism, since 1856, when 
William Butler in the valley of the Ganges, bordering the 
snowline of the Himalayas, planted the first mission. The 
work, always strongly evangelistic and increasingly edu- 
cational, has spread over the great country, pressing even 
to the borders of Afghan and Persia, the closed lands of 
Nepal and Tibet, and now looking toward Mesopotamia, 
seeking to reach all classes, all castes and conditions. 
Mutiny, plague, and famine have often paved the way for 
the Christian message to the hearts of the people. Yet 
the combined Christian forces of Europe and America have 
touched but a fragment of India's three hundred and fif- 
teen millions, weighed down by caste, illiteracy, and false 
religion. Only one man in ten, one woman in one hundred 
can read. But the quiet seed sowing of Christianity for 
more than a century is bringing forth mighty harvests, 
beyond the reapers* power to gather. Mass movements, in 
which whole communities burn their idols and pledge alle- 
giance to Christ, are among the marvels of spiritual experi- 
ence, affecting fifty million depressed people. The over- 
whelming problem of India to-day is the Christian nurture 
and education of these multitudes, whose faces are 
turning toward the light. Methodism maintains in India 
and Burma over 1,500 schools, in which nearly 50,000 pu- 

133 



134 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



pils are gathered; 165,000 children are in its Sunday 
schools; its baptized community in these lands numbers 
356,100. 

Malaysia, the gathering of the peoples. James M. 
Thoburn, in 1879 presiding elder of a district in South 
India "without bounds," saw in Malaysia — that "saucer for 
the overflow of India, China, and Japan, holding the amal- 
gam of many races" — a mighty missionary opportunity. 
In 1885 the venture of faith was made in the appointment 
of William F. Oldham to Singapore on the self-support plan. 
A brilliant lecture on astronomy before a Chinese Club 
won his way at the outset to an opportunity to provide edu- 
cation which has developed into a remarkable chain of 
schools, stretching from Penang to Java where over 8,000 
boys and girls are under Christian instruction in this 
strategic highway of the world. Property for these schools, 
to the value of half a million, has been largely the gift of 
Chinese men of wealth, mainly non-Christians. The pupils 
are the children of immigrants from China, India, and 
Europe, who have come to seek their fortunes where for- 
tunes are quickly gained. Work among the Malays them- 
selves — unresponsive Mohammedans, almost untouched by 
Christianity — is also begun. Similar is the new field of the 
Netherlands Indies, where dwell 48,000,000, mainly the 
bigoted followers of Islam. Through education and evan- 
gelism in fifteen years 1,500 have been won to Christianity. 
But the key to success in Mohammedan countries is the 
medical mission, already begun in Java. 

The Philippines, under the Stars and Stripes. To 
build up Protestant Christianity under the United States 
flag is the unusual experience of the Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions in the Philippines, a task carried forward with unique 
success since 1900. In the island of Luzon, the northern 
part of which is assigned to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church — in two hundred churches, one of which in Manila 
seats fourteen hundred people, in hostels related to govern- 
ment schools, through publishing houses and Bible train- 



CHURCH IN FOREIGN LANDS 



135 



ing schools, the Christian message has in less than two 
decades won over fifty-six thousand members, whose Chris- 
tian fervor is like that of early Methodism. The field is 
''white already unto harvest." 

Japan, the rudder of Asia. In 1872 Robert C. Maclay 
journeyed from China, to found the Methodist work in Japan; 
in 1873 the Methodist Church in Canada sent its first mis- 
sionaries, and in 1886 the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, began its work in the Island Empire. In 1907 these 
three branches of Methodism united in forming the Meth- 
odist Church of Japan, Of which the late beloved Yoichi 
Honda became the first bishop. This first national Meth- 
odist Church in a non-Christian land with about sixteen 
thousand members and forty thousand in its Sunday 
schools, is self-directing and in part self-supporting. The 
missionaries maintain evangelistic work in regions beyond 
the influence of the church; their schools, their theological 
seminary, their publishing houses are developing the Chris- 
tian leadership, upon which the progress of the church 
depends. Christianity reaches a higher social stratum in 
Japan than in most Oriental lands; ''where approximately 
one in a thousand is a Christian, one in a hundred of the 
educated classes is a Christian." But there remains the 
problem of "the ninety and nine." One hundred and ten 
thousand Protestant church members among fifty-two mil- 
lion Japanese attest that the missionary task is just be- 
gun. Agnosticism and a religious devotion to the State 
are added to the forces arrayed against the Christian mes- 
sage. 

Korea, the Palestine of the Orient. The veteran 
pioneer of China and Japan, Dr. Maclay, also opened the 
way in 1884 for the coming of the founders of the mis- 
sion in Korea, William B. Scranton and Henry Appenzel- 
ler. "No theme is more full of inspiration and spiritual 
uplift than the story of the evangelization of the Korean 
people.'' In Korea we have seen the revival of the church 
of the apostolic days, fervent, evangelistic, self-denying. 



136 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



with "the rapture and passion of primitive Christianity." 
Like the early Christians, the Koreans have long suffered 
persecution, yet in one generation one in seventy were won 
to Christ. In 1920 the Methodist Episcopal probationers 
and members numbered over 18,500. Since in 1910 Japan 
annexed Korea, as the Province of Chosen, she has been 
bringing to these simple-hearted people the advantages of 
Western civilization which she has made her own. High- 
ways, railroads, schools, hospitals, a new civic life are 
transforming the Hermit Nation, but these benefits have 
been accompanied, like those promised to the disciples, 
"with persecutions." The new national consciousness in 
Korea seeks for "self-determination,*' against which the mili- 
taristic element in Japan contends. Will the evangelistic 
fervor of the Christian communities be chilled or will 
Korea fulfill its early promise of , being the first Chris- 
tian land in the Orient? To the missionaries is committed 
a delicate, but a hopeful and appealing task. 

£urope, our foreign field of church, extension. The 
early successes of Methodism among the foreign-speaking 
peoples of America soon led to the extension of the work 
into the lands from which they came. The fervor of the 
recently won converts in the New World "breathed itself in 
hundreds of letters to friends across the sea." These 
"missionary epistles," followed by visits of Olaf Hedstrom, 
Olaf P. Peterson, and their sailor converts in Scandinavia, 
and of William Nast in Germany, led to the founding of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church in Norway, Sweden, Fin- 
land, Denmark, Russia, and Germany. From Germany the 
work spread to Austria-Hungary and to Switzerland. In 
1857 the Methodist Episcopal missionaries began their la- 
bors among the followers of the Greek Orthodox Church in 
Bulgaria, in the seething cauldron of the Balkans; in 1907 
preaching was established in the villages of Savoy and 
southern France; since 1871 churches, schools, orphanages, 
and theological seminary have given the Protestant mes- 
sage to Italy. 



CHURCH IN FOREIGN LANDS 



137 



War relief and reconstruction. With the close of the 
World War Europe's torn condition gave occasion for a 
great work of relief and reconstruction, for which the 
Methodist Episcopal Church seemed providentially pre- 
pared under the inspiration of the Centenary. To all the 
war-stricken lands, vast quantities of supplies were sent; 
in the region of Chateau-Thierry thirty-two villages were 
aided to normal life. Orphanages at Charvieu and Ecully, 
the beginnings of social and philanthropic ministry to sev- 
eral communities, the payments of church debts in Ger- 
many and Scandinavia have been some of the many fea- 
tures of the task of rebuilding the morale and material 
of Europe. 

The administration of the Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions. To the Board of Foreign Missions is committed 
the general supervision of all work in the foreign fields. 
Its Board of Managers consists of all the effective bishops 
and thirty-two ministers and thirty-two laymen, who are 
elected by the General Conference, on the nomination of 
the bishops. The General Conference elects two correspond- 
ing secretaries of the Board of Foreign Missions, who are 
its executive officers. Under their direction associate sec- 
retaries, chosen by the Board of Managers, conduct the 
correspondence of the Home and Foreign Departments. 
The Foreign Department comprises six divisions — Africa 
and Southern Asia, Latin America, China, Europe and 
North Africa, Japan and Korea, Education and Literature 
on the Foreign Field. The Home Department is con- 
cerned with Home Cultivation, Foreign Personnel, Medical 
Work, and Surveys and Research. The business of the 
third department, that of Finance, is conducted by a treas- 
urer, assistant treasurer, legal adviser, and secretary of 
designated income. The foreign staff consists of nearly 
twelve hundred missionaries and fifteen thousand native 
workers, who conduct the evangelistic, educational, medical, 
and publishing work in this vast enterprise of the church 
in "all the world." 



138 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. A half- 
century of remarkable achievement has followed the found- 
ing of the Woman^s Foreign Missionary Society in Boston 
in 1869. The Society's eleven branches cover the* United 
States; their auxiliary societies in the local churches 
number over 16,000 and include nearly 618,000 members 
among the women and children. The Society's publications 
go to over 187,000 subscribers. Over 600 missionaries are 
now under the Society's commission, to bring their teach- 
ing and healing ministries to the women and children 
of all lands where the standards of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church have been planted. This Society has the distinc- 
tion of having sent the first woman doctor to India (1869), 
to China (1873), to Korea (1887), to the Philippines 
(1900) ; of founding the first hospital for women in each 
of these lands, and the first college for women in Asia 
and in Mexico. The Society is bearing its share in the 
new union colleges for women, Madras, Ginling, Yen 
Ching, and Tokyo. In its 1,300 schools are nearly 50,000 
pupils. In its first half-century over $25,000,000 have been 
disbursed, and the receipts of the year 1920-21 reached 
approximately $2,268,000. Its foreign property — hospitals, 
schools, homes — is valued at over $4,000,000. The Society 
nobly carries forward the resolve of its forerunner, the 
New York Female Missionary Society (1819-1859): "Let 
us leave nothing unattempted which promises to promote 
the advancement of our Redeemer's kingdom." 

Methodism's unfinished task. In the distribution of 
world-evangelization among the Protestant Christian forces, 
upon the Methodist Episcopal Church is placed the respon- 
sibility of bringing the gospel to one hundred and fifty mil- 
lion people — approximately fifteen per cent, of the Chris- 
tian world. In this great foreign parish five million die 
every year without the knowledge of Christ. It is esti- 
mated that one billion of the world's inhabitants have 
never heard His message. The Church, in its new world- 
consciousness, confronts a new world situation. Nations 



CHURCH IN FOREIGN LANDS 



139 



long unimpressionable are now plastic, soon to harden 
unchangeably. 

"O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling, 
To tell to all the world that God is Light." 

Collateral Reading 

Reid and Gracey, Methodist Episcopal Missions. 
Taylor and Luccock, The Christian Crusade for World 
Democracy. 

The Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions. 
Oldham, W. F., India, Malaysia, and the Philippines. 
Oldham, W. F., Thohurn, Called of God. 
Griffis, W. E., A Modern Pioneer in Korea (Henry G. 

Appenzeller) . 
McDowell, C. L., Our Work for the World. 
The Report of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. What have been the achievements of the Board of 
Foreign Missions in India? in Malaysia? in Japan? in 
Korea? in the Philippines? 

2. What would have been the progress of Christianity in 
these great fields if every Christian in America had prayed 
and given as you yourself have prayed and given? 

3. Is your local church a provincial church or a world 
church? How much does it give per member per week for 
the evangelization of the world? 

4. What special distinction belongs to the educational and 
medical work of the Woman*s Foreign Missionary Society 
among the women's boards for foreign work? 

5. What is the unfinished task of Methodism? 



CHAPTER XXI 



EDUCATION IN METHODISM 

It was to a iittlo band of students in Oxford University,, 
led by Charles and John Wesley in their college days, that 
the name of ''Methodists" was first given, in derision for 
the rigid system of study, piety, and philanthropy which 
they practiced in the Holy Club. The founder of Methodism 
was ''by inclination and training a«scholar. He knew the 
charm of letters and the joy of elevated thought. Few 
men read more books than he, though his study was mostly 
in the saddle. He always spoke from a full mind."^ Mr. 
Wesley was eagerly interested in the founding of schools 
for the children of the poor, notably that at Kingswood, 
for which he selected teachers, edited textbooks, made 
rules, and raised funds, declaring that it had given him 
more trouble than any other undertaking, but had become 
worth all it cost — "an honor to the whole body of Meth- 
odists." Wesleyan Methodism early planted schools, col- 
leges, and theological seminaries. 

"One of the first instincts of American Methodism was for 
education." In 1784 Bishop Asbury and Dr. Coke laid the 
foundations of Cokesbury College, in Maryland, "that learn- 
ing and piety may go hand in hand." When after ten years 
this first Methodist college in the world was burned down, 
the Methodists gave an average of $2.50 a member to 
replace it; when it was soon again destroyed by fire, Bishop 
Asbury was convinced that "the Lord called not the Meth- 
odists to build colleges." These were the days of itinerants 
in a young country, beset by wars. For its preachers the 
church provided no education nor required it, and they 
received but meager support. In 1816 and 1820 Nathan 

1 Professor Caleb T. Winchester. 

140 



EDUCATION IN METHODISM 



141 



Bangs, the most constructive statesman of early Amer- 
ican Methodism, pleaded the cause of education before the 
General Conference, urging the founding of seminaries and 
colleges, a Conference course of study, the publishing of 
periodical literature, which had been suspended for twenty 
years, and an increase in ministerial support, that the 
undeserved "reproach that Methodists were enemies to 
learning might be rolled away." Academies soon sprang 
up, following the pioneer located in New Market, New Hamp- 
shire, in 1817, which was transferred to Wilbraham, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1824 and became Wilbraham Academy. Colleges 
multiplied also, the oldest with continued existence being 
Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, founded 
in 1830, preceded by institutions in Kentucky and Penn- 
sylvahia, which were merged in other schools, and by Al- 
legheny and Dickinson, which, however, were not under 
Methodist auspices until 1833. 

The churcli and the colleges. The list of Methodist 
colleges in the United States is now a long one. More 
than 40 institutions of college grade are reported by the 
Board of Education, and 32 professional schools or 
departments. A similar number of secondary schools are 
maintained. To these must be added 2 professional schools, 
8 colleges, 8 secondary schools for colored pupils in the 
South, and some 40 schools maintained by the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society and the General Deaconess Board. 
The Church supports in the foreign field 18 colleges and 
universities, 15 theological and 41 Bible training schools, 
and nearly three thousand schools of lower grade. Its 
pupils in denominational schools number over 51,000 in 
the United States and over 97,000 in the foreign field. 
Through the Wesley Foundations it seeks to minister to 
tens of thousands of its sons and daughters in the State 
colleges and universities. The reproach of the early days 
is altogether buried under this vast educational system, 
which is an "honor to the whole body of Methodists." 

Typical institutions. Wesleyan University at Middle- 



142 THE WORKER :a.ND HIS CHURCH 



town, Connecticut, with its long history, its distinguished 
faculty, its 550 students, is a notable example of a small 
high-grade college for young men. Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
versity at Delaware with over 1,300 students is an instance 
of a coeducational school of excellent influence, located in 
a small community, while Boston University in the heart 
of a great metropolis, to which it ministers in many un- 
usual lines of education, is also coeducational and numbers 
in the College of Liberal Arts about 800 students and in 
its various professional schools nearly 4,000, of whom some- 
1,600 are occupied with business and commercial courses, 
Syracuse University is another instance of a great college 
community in a large city, having over 1,600 students in 
its academic courses and over 1,700 in its professional de- 
partments, art and engineering taking the larger numbers. 
Northwestern University, founded in 1850, at Evanston, 
Illinois, provides also for large numbers, with over 2,000 
men and women in its department of liberal arts and 
3,000 in its professional schools, that of business and com- 
merce being the largest. Goucher College, founded in 1885 
as the Woman's College at Baltimore, numbers over 800 
girls in its classes. Cornell College, located at Mount Vernon, 
Iowa, has nearly 1,000 students, while the University of 
Southern California, at Los Angeles, enrolls in its various 
departments over 3,700 pupils and is rapidly growing. 

Theological education. John Wesley early desired to 
found '*a seminary for laborers," but the project was 
deferred for lack of a "proper tutor." His successors in 
England after long and serious opposition founded three 
institutions, which have an honorable record. In the 
United States the first theological school was the Meth- 
odist Biblical Institute, founded in Concord, New Hamp- 
shire, in 1847, removed to Boston in 1867, and since 1871 
forming the theological department of Boston University. 
Its students number somewhat over 200. The second sem- 
inary for theological training is Garrett Biblical Institute, 
begun in 1855, in Evanston, Illinois, and reaching about 



EDUCATION IN METHODISM 



143 



170 in its classes. The Centennial Movement of 1866 gave 
the impulse for the Drew Theological Seminary, at Madi- 
son, New Jersey, which is located in a beautiful estate 
near the city of New York, and enrolls some 150 students. 
More recent institutions are the Iliff School of Theology 
at Denver, Kimball at Salem, Oregon, and Maclay, at Los 
Angeles, 

Education on the foreign iield. Under the Board of 
Foreign Missions and the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
Society the church maintains a great educational system 
in non-Christian lands. Education is of the very essence 
of the missionary purpose. We work among the backward 
peoples. How can we touch them unless we teach them? 
Our spiritual appeals stimulate their minds. How can 
we serve unless we train them? We exemplify before them 
an organized social order, based on intelligence and mor- 
.ality; how can they build their community after the fashion 
of ours unless we give food to their thinking and force to 
their moral life? To bring Jesus Christ, "in whom are 
hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," to the people 
and the nations who do not know him, is the purpose of 
the extensive educational work on the mission field, already 
referred to, whether in the smallest village school under 
the palm trees or the great union universities in which the 
forces of Protestant Christianity in England and America 
are joining. 

The Board of Education. In 1864, anticipating the 
celebration of the Centennial of the church, the General 
Conference created a committee to consider the proper 
objects for the gifts which the occasion would stimulate. 
This committee recommended a board to administer such 
gifts and to become the Board of Education, whose duties, 
as now described by its constitution, are "to serve as the 
officially authorized agency of the church in behalf of 
ministerial and general education." This board has an 
advisory relation to the Methodist schools in the United 
States, which are mainly governed by individual Boards 



144 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



of Trustees or maintained by a missionary organization. 
Through the Children's Sunday School Fund, initiated in 
the Centennial year, and the collections of the annual 
Children's Day, instituted in 1870, loans amounting to over 
$3,000,000 have aided over 26,000 boys and girls in their 
effort to gain an education. Three types of schools re- 
ceive appropriations from this Board, namely, Southern 
schools, frontier schools, and other schools under some 
special emergency. The religious work in connection with 
independent and non-Methodist schools, maintained in asso- 
ciation with the Board of Home Missions, has been ex- 
tended in the 1916-1920 quadrennium to 49 institutions, 
while 41 Methodist schools have received annual grants in 
aid. The Board seeks to promote evangelism and Bible 
study as an essential feature of these schools. Its influence 
upon the intellectual life of the institutions has been ex- 
erted through the University Senate, composed of men 
actively engaged in educational work, selected by the 
General Conference, to protect the standards of Methodist 
education, classifying the schools and promoting their 
endowments and the adequacy of their curricula. 

In 1916 the fiftieth anniversary of the Board of Education 
was celebrated by the beginning of the Educational Jubilee 
Movement, which has added ?35, 000,000 to the treasuries 
of the academies, Wesley Foundations, colleges, universities, 
and theological schools of Methodism. 

Tlie Board of Education for Negroes. At the close 
of the Civil War four millions of people of African descent, 
released from two hundred and fifty years of slavery, were 
left to shift for themselves, without property, without edu- 
cation, without experience. Freedmen's Aid Commissions 
were developed, with which the Methodist Episcopal Church 
cooperated until 1866, when the Freedman's Aid Society 
wa« organized in Cincinnati. The General Conference of 
1869 accepted it as the church's agent to provide educa- 
tion for the colored people. "To put the spelling book and 
the Bible into the head and the heart of the Negro was the 



EDUCATION IN METHODISM 



145 



aim of the men who organized the Freedmen's Aid So- 
ciety.*' Seventy-five teachers were at once sent into the 
South, to gather the children into any sort of shack or to 
teach them in the open air, that they might be fitted for 
Christian citizenship. Institutions soon sprang up and, as 
opportunities for public elementary education increased, 
the Methodist schools promoted secondary and higher 
normal training. After fifty years of self-sacrificing effort 
the Society possesses free from indebtedness 18 institutions 
of learning, including a theological seminary, a medical 
school, and several colleges and industrial schools, with 
some 6,500 pupils. The Society has cooperated with the 
Board of Education in standardizing its enterprises. From 
the colored people themselves comes an increasing amount 
for the support of the schools. More than 200,000 young 
people have gone out from its institutions and have con- 
tributed no small measure to the marvelous progress of the 
colored people since slavery days. The General Conference 
of 1920, recognizing that it was more than half a century 
since the Emancipation Proclamation and that the genera- 
tion of freedmen had long passed, changed the title of the 
Society to the Board of Education for Negroes. 

Collateral Reading 

Hyde, A. B., The Story of Methodism, pages 150-157. 
The Methodist Year Book. 

Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. IV, Chapter 
XXXIX. 

Annual Reports of the Board of Education, the Board of 

[Foreign Missions, and the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
Society, the Board of Education for Negroes. 
QUESTIOIN^S FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 
1. What was the influence of the founder of Methodism 
upon education for the preachers? For the people? 

2. What was the history of the first Methodist College 
in the vrorld? 



146 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



3. What is the Methodist Episcopal Church doing to-day 
for secondary education, for college education, for theo- 
logical education in the United States? 

4. Describe some of its typical institutions. 

5. What is the Board of Foreign Missions doing for edu- 
cation in non-Christian lands? The Woman's Foreign Mis- 
sionary Society? 

6. What is the task of the Board of Education? 

7. What is the history of the organization now called 
the Board of Education for Negroes? 



CHAPTER XXII 



SUNDAY SCHOOLS, LITERATURE, AND BENEVO- 
LENCE 

The beg;innings of tlie Sunday school. Although re- 
ligious education has always been in some form a part 
of the Christian system, since Paul admonished Timothy, 
his son in the gospel, to be "nourished in the words of 
the faith and of good doctrine,'* as an organized movement 
the development of Sunday schools began in 1780 under 
the leadership of Robert Raikes in England. The earliest 
Sunday school, in the strict sense of the term, under 
Methodist auspices was founded when, in 1769, Miss Han- 
nah Ball, of High Wycombe, "earnestly desiring to pro- 
mote the interest of the Church of Christ," gathered about 
her "a wild, little company, but seeming willing to be 
instructed." In 1784 and 1786 the Journal of Mr. Wesley, 
who was then more than fourscore years of age, con- 
tained enthusiastic descriptions of the large Sunday 
schools at Bingley and Bolton: "I find these schools 
springing up wherever I go. Perhaps God may have 
some deeper end therein than men are aware of. Who 
knows but some of these schools may become nurseries 
for Christians?" With growing appreciation in 1787 he 
writes, "It seems that these will be a great means of reviv- 
ing religion throughout the nation," and in 1790, "It is one 
of the noblest institutions which has been seen in Europe 
for some centuries." 

In 1786 Francis Asbury opened a Sunday school in the 
home of Thomas Crashaw in Virginia, and in 1790 the first 
recognition of the Sunday school by an American church 
was made by the Methodist Episcopal Conference, in the 
resolve to "labor, as the heart and soul of one man, to 

147 



148 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



establish Sunday schools, in order to instruct poor chil- 
dren, white and black, to read." The beginnings of Sunday- 
school literature were made in the vote to "compile a 
proper schoolbook to teach them learning and piety." 

In 1827 the organization of the Sunday School Union 
was hailed, in the words of that ecclesiastical statesman, 
Nathan Bangs, ''with grateful delight by our friends and 
brethren throughout the country." This enterprise with 
varied fortunes and combinations continued a steady, but 
limited contribution to the cause, having in its later years 
an average income of $27,000, until in 1908 it was super- 
seded by the Board of Sunday Schools. 

The Board of Sunday Schools. ''For the moral and 
religious instruction of our children and for the promotion 
of Bible knowledge among our people," the General Con- 
ference of 1908 established the Board of Sunday Schools, 
to have general oversight of all the Sunday-school interests 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The first decade of its 
endeavor was a period of real awakening on the part of 
the Christian Church everywhere to the importance of 
childhood and youth in relation to the kingdom of God, and 
of marked advance in the method of every phase of reli- 
gious training. In its several departments the Board of 
Sunday Schools has followed these lines of progress, plan- 
ning the Sunday-school curriculum, holding institutes for 
teacher training, maintaining representatives of its work 
and promoting the development of schools in all needy 
fields in the United States and, in cooperation with the 
Board of Foreign Missions, in several foreign lands and 
furnishing grants of literature. The Sunday-school mem- 
bership in 1920 was 4,338,523, in some 36,000 schools with 
some 400,000 officers and teachers. With one half the chil- 
dren of our country receiving no religious training what- 
ever, with not more than five per cent, of our schools meas- 
uring up to high standards of educational efficiency, and 
only a small number of their teachers trained for their 
task, the Board of Sunday Schools has before it a great 



SUNDAY SCHOOLS, LITERATURE, BENEVOLENCE 149 



field of service, essential to the coming of the kingdom of 
our Lord. The Board consists of the editor of Sunday- 
school publications, three bishops, a representative of each 
General Conference district, and several members at large, 
appointed hy the General Conference. Its executive officer 
is a corresponding secretary, elected by the General Con- 
ference. 

The church and the young people. The Epworth 
League, created in 1889 in Cleveland, Ohio, by the union of 
five young people's organizations, seeks to relate the youth 
of Methodism to "the program of the whole church for 
the whole world.'' Through Sabbath prayer meetings, 
through at least two thousand Mission Study Classes, 
through the Departments of Stewardship and of Life Work, 
through the institutes which gather thousands of young 
people annually for a period of study, inspiration, and conse- 
cration, the League is increasingly accomplishing its essen- 
tial task. The Junior Epw^orth League follows similar lines 
of service among the children. The Epworth Herald had in 
1920 a circulation of 49,807. The affairs of the Leagues are 
directed by the Board of the Epworth League, nominated 
by the Board of Bishops and elected by the General Con- 
ference. The church w^hich cares for its youth is the 
church of the future, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
like Christiana, would carry her sons and daughters with 
her on the pilgrimage to the Heavenly City. 

The church and literature. ''Take care that every 
society be duly supplied with books," exclaimed John Wes- 
ley to his preachers. '*0, why is not this regarded?" Early 
in his career he began the publication of tracts, then 
pamphlets, then books, writing or translating them in his 
own scanty leisure, until he had ''swept over the whole field 
of thought.'' His preachers were pledged to spread these 
publications and the profits of the enterprise were devoted 
to the cause of God. His first missionaries to America 
introduced the books wherever they went, but the difficulty 
of importing the supplies led to the appointment of a 



150 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



book steward in this country. The Rev. John Dickins in 
1789 began the duties of this office by publishing The 
Imitation of Christ, The Sainfs Everlasting Rest, and 
Primitive Physick. In 1797 a Book Committee was ap- 
pointed to assist him and his successors. In 1804 the busi- 
ness was removed from its first home, Philadelphia, to 
New York, and since 1889 it has been established at 150 
Fifth Avenue. This was the wise and courageous begin- 
ning, on borrowed capital, of an enterprise whose sales of 
literature in the quadrennium, 1916-1920, amounted to 
$13,661,756.87, and since 1844 have reached the total, $121,- 
929,157.21. 

The Methodist Book Concern. The present status of 
The Book Concern, with its centers of publication at New 
York, Cincinnati, Chicago, its salesrooms in Boston, Pitts- 
burgh, Detroit, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Portland, 
Oregon, with its publishing agents, book editor, editor 
of Sunday-school publications and his staff, editor of 
the Methodist Review, and the editors of ten or more 
weekly religious papers, is that of a great and growing 
business. In 1916-1920 its Sunday school literature, adapted 
to every phase and every age, in a score of quarterlies, 
journals, lesson leaves, was issued in the Uniform Lesson 
Series to the extent of nearly 4,000,000,000 pages and in the 
Graded Lessons over 12,000,000 pages. The Concern fur- 
nishes church requisites of every sort from hymnals and 
Disciplines to church record books and cards for Sunday- 
school children. 

In the range of its books it still seems to follow Mr. 
Wesley's example, in "sweeping over the whole field of 
thought,*' with careful purpose to minister to the intel- 
lectual and devotional life of the church and the spread of 
Christianity. The circulation of its periodical literature 
is annually about 300,000, while the Sunday-school publica- 
tions reach annually at least more than 4,500,000 readers. 
Thus have the leaves of the tree of knowledge been sent 
forth **for the healing of the nations." The affairs of 



SUNDAY SCHOOLS, LITERATURE, BENEVOLENCE 151 



The Book Concern are administered by the Book Com- 
mittee, appointed by the General Conference. The profits 
of the large enterprise are applied ''for the benefit of the 
traveling, supernumerary, and retired preachers, their 
wives, widows, and children." For this purpose, in 1916- 
1920, over $1,000,000 were distributed to the Annual Con- 
ferences. 

The church and its superannuated ministers. As 

early as 1763 Methodism established a fund for those 
pathetically called "worn-out preachers," and in 1774 the 
second American Conference ordered an Easter collection 
for needy itinerants. The Annual Conferences have various 
methods of aiding or pensioning their members — by endow- 
ment funds, Preachers' Aid Societies, or a percentage tax 
upon the effective members. The General Conference of 
1912 established the Board of Conference Claimants, to build 
up and administer a Connectional Permanent Fund, and to 
increase the revenues for the benefit of Conference Claim- 
ants. Its secretary is elected by the General Conference. 
By a continuous campaign over $1,000,000 in trust funds 
have been accumulated. The total amount of invested 
funds for Conference Claimants, who number over 7,000, 
is in excess of $10,000,000 held by the Annual Conferences, 
the Preachers Aid Societies, and the Board of Conference 
Claimants. The progress toward an adequate pension has 
been recently accelerated, since in 1913 sixty per cent, of 
the retired preachers received less than $200 a year, in 
1919 seventy per cent, received more than $200. "One out 
of every four claimants now receives as much as one dollar 
a day." 

The church and temperance. Although the Board of 
Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals was created by 
the General Conference of 1916, Methodism has carried on 
warfare against the saloon for more than a century, as 
befitted a church founded by John Wesley, "a prohibition- 
ist one hundred and fifty years ahead of his time." For 
the victory which has now been won for constitutional pro- 



152 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



hibition in the United States the Methodist Episcopal 
Church may claim an honorable share of credit. The activi- 
ties of the present Board have related to speeches and 
literature among foreign-speaking peoples, colored com- 
munities, and at the corners of city streets, a campaign of 
newspaper publicity, and the promotion of sound laws and 
their enforcement. This it purposes to carry forward from 
the center at Washington, in every department of civic 
righteousness. 

The cliurcli and philanthropy. In the spirit of its 
Divine Master, the Methodist Episcopal Church has ever 
had a heart of compassion toward every form of suffering 
and of need. The members of the Holy Club at Oxford 
doubted ''whether we can be happy at all hereafter unless 
we have, according to our power, 'fed the hungry, clothed 
the naked, visited those that are sick, and in prison'; and 
made all these actions subservient to a higher purpose, 
even the saving of souls from death." The early Methodist 
societies under Mr. Wesley's stimulating leadership and 
example sought "to do good to all men," not only "in spir- 
ituals" but also "in temporals." The church in America, 
especially since the Civil War, has been gradually develop- 
ing those institutions of helpfulness which the growth of 
the population and the needs of large communities make 
increasingly necessary. So many of these enterprises for the 
care of the sick, the orphan, and the aged have come into 
independent existence under Methodist auspices that the 
General Conference of 1920 established a Board of Hos- 
pitals and Homes for their general supervision and pro- 
motion, without superseding their individual Boards of 
management. The hospitals number over 60, the children's 
homes over 50, while there are nearly 50 homes for the 
aged. 

The church and the distribution of the Bible. The 

American Bible Society, founded in 1816 by men prominent 
in national affairs, has had more than a century of honor- 
able history. In 1836 fhe Methodist Episcopal Church 



SUNDAY SCHOOLS, LITERATURE, BENEVOLENCE 153 

accepted this Society as its instrument in organized Bible 
work throughout the world, and since 1863 one of the 
secretaries of the American Bible Society has been a minis- 
ter of that church. Through 9 home and 11 foreign agencies 
the Society employs over 1,600 persons to distribute Bibles 
and Testaments in all parts of the world. The manage- 
ment of the Society is vested in a Board of thirty-six lay- 
men, among whom the Methodist Episcopal Church has 
several representatives. Its Bibles, in more than 150 lan- 
guages and dialects, have been issued to the number of over 
24,000,000 in 1916-1920. More than 7,000,000 copies of the 
Sacred Scriptures in ninety to a hundred languages were 
distributed in the trenches, prison camps, hospitals, and 
cantonments during the World War. 

The colporteur of the American Bible Society is said to 
be ubiquitous. **You cannot lose him. If you ascend 
to the frozen north, he is there; if you bury yourself in 
the steamy depths of a South American forest, he is ahead, 
of you; if you climb the Himalayas and penetrate some 
high pass in Thibet, you will find his footprints. On his 
bicycle he hums along the highways of the Far West; on. 
his snowshoes he finds the lumberjacks in the big timber; 
his trusty Ford is seen skimming over the plains. He 
paddles down still rivers in an African dugout, or packs 
his Bibles on a Russian sled in the frozen fastnesses of 
Siberia. He is the John the Baptist who prepares in the 
desert a highway for the missionary."^ 

Collateral Reading 

Hurst, J. F., The History of Methodism, Vol. Ill, Chapters 
CX, CXX; Vol. IV, Chapter XL.; Vol. V, Chapters 
LXIV, LXXXIV; Vol. VI, Chapters XCVII-XCVIII. 

The Methodist Year Book. 

The Reports of the Boards of Sunday Schools, Conference 



1 Montgomery. The Bible and Missions. 



154 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Claimants, the Book Concern, the Epworth League, etc. 
Dwight, H. O., The Centennial History of the American 

Bidle Society. 
North, Eric M., Early Methodist Philanthropy, 
Faulkner, J. A., Wesley as Sociologist, Theologian, Church- 
man, Part I. 

Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Part VII. 

Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. Who were influential in the establishment of the first 
Sunday schools of Methodism? 

2. What organization in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
has fostered them? 

3. What is the history of the Epworth League? What 
historical interest in each word of its name? 

4. What has been the attitude of Methodism to "the 
printed word"? What was John Wesley's influence in 
regard to the publication of literature? Who was John 
Dlckins? 

5. Describe the work of The Methodist Book Concern. 

6. What provision does the Methodist Episcopal Church 
make for its retired preachers? 

7. What influence has the church had upon temperance? 
Through what Board does it exercise that influence to-day? 

8. How is the church continuing Mr. Wesley's practice 
*'to do good to all men in temporals"? What recent Board 
coordinates its philanthropies? 

9. By what agency does the church continue its service 
in the distribution of the Word of God? 



CHAPTER XXIII 



THE GENIUS OP METHODISM^ 

We have now traced the rise of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the Wesleyan Revival of the eighteenth century 
and have seen, in outline, its structure and its multiplied 
activities in the United States and across the seas, in Con- 
ference and church and board, in school and college and 
press and hospital. What are the characteristics which 
stand out, which make the church distinctively what it is? 

Adaptability of organization. The first of these char- 
acteristics is the adaptability of its organization to the 
purpose of the energetic evangelization of the world and 
the building up of a living permanent church among the 
people reached by its message. This is due largely to the 
genius of John Wesley in adapting older methods and seiz- 
ing upon new ones for this great purpose. He kept his 
body of preachers as a swiftly moving unit, each one ready 
to be assigned to any field of labor, and, to preserve this 
mobility, he required frequent changing of circuits. He 
also held them responsible, not primarily to the congrega- 
tions to which they preached, but to the central authority 
of the church, the Conference over which he himself, 
through personal influence, had large powers. This main- 
tained the unity of the movement and later the unity of the 
church. Again he developed Captain Foy's suggestion for 
a method of gathering the weekly penny for the poor 
into the class meeting, which became a most effective 
instrument for educating and stimulating the multitudes 
of new converts in the Christian life. 

The principles contained in these forms of organization 

1 Quotations in this chapter are from the pen of the late Dr. S. L. Beiler, 

who prepared the earlier book of the same name in this series, 

155 



156" THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



have been carried still further in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. All through its early years the itinerancy was 
ever pushing the energetic young preachers out into the 
frontiers with the moving of the population, there to build 
foundations for the future. Even though the length of 
time which a preacher may remain at a single appointment 
has been gradually increased and is now indefinite, he is 
still subject to new appointment every year. Again, *'the 
appointments of ministers are by bishops who represent the 
entire church. It is the theory that the minister relin- 
quishes the right of absolutely deciding as to his field of 
labor, and the local church also surrenders the right of 
absolutely deciding who shall be its pastor. Consultation is 
freely allowed, but the final determination, or fixing, of 
the appointments is with the bishop as the representative 
of the entire church. A practical reason for this is seen 
in the result that every church has a pastor and every 
pastor 'has a church." 

Unity of the churcli. Furthermore, the centralization 
of authority in the General Conference, with certain powers 
delegated to the bishops, maintains the church as a living 
unit, every part connected actively with every other part. 
In a sense, the unit is the church as a whole. ''This is in 
contrast with Congregationalism, in which the local church 
is the unit and the general body is an aggregation or asso- 
ciation of churches." In the Methodist Episcopal Church 
"membership is in the entire body, while enrolled in a 
local society (local church). Ministers are ministers of 
the whole church, while enrolled in an Annual Conference." 
It is thus possible for the entire church to feel the inspira- 
tion of success in any part of it. When the challenge of 
some great crisis or opportunity is presented, the church 
is already organized to meet it. 

Democratic character. To these important features of 
Methodist polity another has been added — the increasing 
democratic character of the organization. The highest 
body in the church is the General Conference. By its 



THE GENIUS OF METHODISM 



157 



power such autocratic authority as the bishop is permitted 
to exercise is controlled and governed. This Conference 
was originally composed only of preachers, but in 1872 
laymen were admitted, in 1900 in equal numbers with the 
preachers. In the latter year women were admitted as lay 
delegates, thus providing equal suffrage in the church two 
decades before it was reached in the nation. The church 
organization thus resulting **has proven to be democratic 
enough to give a sense of responsibility to every member, 
and freedom to each sane personality for development and 
work. On the other hand, it is autocratic enough to secure 
high efficiency in organization and work. It is a happy and, 
we believe, a providential combination of these two prin- 
ciples." 

Devotion to education. A second mark of Methodism 
is its devotion to education. Here again Wesley was a 
pioneer. The experiences of new spiritual life which the 
Wesleyan Revival brought aroused new intellectual inter- 
ests. *'Wesley did not create the new intellectual life by 
his literature. He only recognized it and tried to meet 
its demands with his working library of four hundred 
volumes and his schools of all kinds." This emphasis on 
education has grown to vast proportions. It appears in 
the many Methodist colleges the world around, in the pub- 
lications- of The Book Concern, in the amazing output of 
Sunday-school literature, in the varied activities of the 
Boards of Education, of Education for Negroes, and of 
Sunday Schools. It appears in the work of the local 
church, in the Sunday school and mission study class, in 
the educational programs of the Epworth Leagues and the 
women's missionary societies, in the studies required for 
local preacher's license, for admission to Conference, and 
in the theological schools. One can hardly conceive that 
so large and closely organized a church could maintain its 
activity and its unity without all these means of training 
the great numbers of leaders required, of lifting the whole 
membership of the church to an intelligent comprehension 



158 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



of the purpose and work of the church, and the training of 
the children and youth of the church in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord. 

Freedom from doctrinal controversy. Yet this em-, 
phasis on education is not an indication that Methodism's 
chief interest is in matters of doctrine or theology. It 
has had no great controversies over these subjects. "It 
began as a revival and has continued as a life. It found 
men living lives of sin; in the bondage of sinful habits, 
spiritually dead. To Wesley and Whitefield the way of 
salvation from this condition of sin and death was by 
faith in Jesus Christ, who brings in new life. This had 
brought inner peace to their hearts and life to their souls. 
Their labors as evangelists proved abundantly that other 
men, in even worse bondage and death than they themselves 
had been in, might find deliverance in the same way. They 
found these experiences confirmed by the Bible, and the 
Bible confirmed by them. So, with the experience in their 
hearts and the Bible in their hands, they went forth preach- 
ing the facts, the Lord confirming their labors and faith 
by regenerating signs and wonders." 

"Methodism began as a practical movement for the spir- 
itual regeneration and moral uplift of lost men. It set 
forth no special tenets, was interested in promulgating no 
distinctive creed. It was not interested in any theory 
about religion, but was interested in religion itself — reli- 
gion as a life and power to save men from the bondage 
of sinful habit, from moral degradation, and from hope- 
lessness and despair. Wesley saw everywhere the forms 
of religion without the power of godliness. The nation was 
dying of inanition, despair, and vice. What he wanted, 
believed in, preached, and demanded in his followers was 
religion manifesting itself in a pure, holy, earnest life 
of service. There are on record numberless statements 
made by Wesley which set forth these facts. *I make,' he 
said, *no opinion the term of union with any man. I think 
and let think. What I want is holiness of life. They who 



THE GENIUS OF METHODISM 



159 



have this are my brother, sister, and mother/ *We do not 
impose, in order to admission, any opinions whatever/ 
'Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is at best a very slender part 
of religion/ " 

Standards of doctrine. This does not mean that Wes- 
ley and the Methodists were then, or that Methodists are 
now, without convictions as to the fundamental truths of 
Christianity. The constitution of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church contains the so-called "Articles of Religion,'' twenty- 
four brief statements of faith adapted by Mr. Wesley from 
the "Thirty-Nine Articles" of the Church of England, and 
a twenty-fifth added by the American church. To this 
historic statement of the faith of the Christian Church 
have been added as further "standards of doctrine'* the 
"Minutes" of the Conferences, Wesley's "Notes on the New 
Testament," and certain of his published sermons. These 
are "standards of doctrine," not because they contain beliefs 
peculiarly Methodistic, but because they represent the his- 
toric faith of the church and Christians' vital experiences 
of the redemptive power of God. 

The heart of Methodism. In his dictionary Mr. Wes- 
ley defined "Methodists" as those who live "according to 
the method given in the Bible." He was never conscious 
of striving to establish any other principle among "the 
people called Methodists" than the experience of God's 
redeeming love in Christ and the imitation of "Him who 
went about doing good to all men." In the same way the 
more the Methodists of to-day are filled with Jesus' con- 
sciousness of the urgency of the gospel, with his devotion 
to human welfare, the more they experience through him 
God's redemptive love, find him their living and ever-pres- 
ent Saviour and lead other men to find him so, the more 
truly they are Methodists. The heritage of modern Meth- 
odists from Wesley and Asbury and other heroic leaders 
is great just because of the degree to which they found 
Christ their Lord and followed him in seeking the redemp- 
tion of mankind. We shall be worthy of our inheritance 



160 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



only if we, like them, boldly move forward in the footsteps 
of the Redeemer. 

"The moment I awaked," says Mr. Wesley in his Jour- 
nal in 1838, 'Jesus Master' was in my heart and in my 
mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye 
fixed on him, and my soul waiting on him continually." 

May the chief characteristics of a Methodist ever be 
a vital experience of the abiding love of God, an alert con- 
sciousness of the world's urgent need of Christ, a burning 
desire to bring the world to him, and a will unflinching in 
its devotion to him.! 

Collateral Reading 

Fitchett, W. H., Wesley and His Century, Proem, Part III, 

XIII, Part IV, XII-XIII. 
Townsend, Workman, and Eayrs, The New History of 

Metfiodism, Vol. I, Introduction. 

Qltestioxs for Thought and Discussion 

1. What are the characteristics of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church which make it what it is? 

2. How far do you find these characteristics to be present 
in your local church? 

3. Are the characteristics fixed or could the church lose 
them? What w^ould be the effect of such a loss? 

4. Is all the work of your local church done by a few 
members, or does it plan to have every member actively 
serving the church and community? Which is better for 
the kingdom of God? How can you gain the advantages of 
both methods? 

5. Does your local church share with the whole church 
the sense of the importance of Christian education? How 
does it demonstrate its conviction? 

6. What is the heart of Methodism? How can you help 
your local church to feel the importance of this? 



CHAPTER XXIV 



METHODISM AND THE WORLD CHURCH 

When we started upon this study, we began with the 
world church and saw how it spread over Europe and the 
Americas, Asia and Africa. We have also marked the 
place of the Wesleyan Revival as a great awakening, ener- 
gizing experience, stirring into new life many of the 
branches of the church and giving rise to a new group 
of Christians, the Methodists, and their several denomi- 
nations. 

The Methodist attitude toward other denomina- 
tions. The Methodist Churches thus take their place as 
one group among many others, who all alike look to Jesus 
Christ as the Head of the church and are one in their alle- 
giance to him, hut who seek to fulfill his will each along 
the lines of its own historic origin and development. 
Whatever may be the portion of the truth which each holds 
most dear, with these other churches the Methodists have 
no quarrel or controversy, so long as the truth is sought in 
love. For the Methodist Episcopal Church the words of 
the historical statement which begins the Discipline (1920) 
are in this respect significant: 

**The Methodist Episcopal Church has always believed 
that the only infallible proof of the legitimacy of any 
branch of the Christian Church is its ability to seek and 
save the lost, and to disseminate the Pentecostal spirit 
and life. The chief stress has ever been laid, not upon the 
forms, but upon the essentials of religion. It holds that 
true Churches of Christ may differ widely in ceremonies, 
ministerial orders, and government. Its members are al- 
lowed freedom of choice among the debated modes of bap- 

161 



162 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



tism. If any member has scruples against receiving the 
Lord's Supper kneeling, he is permitted to receive it stand- 
ing or sitting. In ordinary worship its people are invited to 
unite in extemporary prayer, but for the administration 
of the sacraments, ordinations, the solemnization of matri- 
mony, the burial of the dead, and other special services, a 
Liturgy is appointed, taken in large part from Rituals used 
by the Universal Church from ancient times. 

''The sole object of the rules, regulations, and usages of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church is that it may fulfill to 
the end of time its original divine commission as a leader 
in evangelization, in all true reforms, and in the promo- 
tion of fraternal relations among ail branches of the one 
Church of Jesus Christ, with which it is a coworker in the 
spiritual conquest of the world for the Son of God." 

Federation and union. No one can forecast the future 
movements toward unity among the many denominations. 
Already in several ways, notably through the Federal Coun- 
cil of the Churches of Christ in America, the Protestant 
churches of America are studying their common problems 
and working out forms and agencies of cooperation for 
special purposes. The Sunday School Council of Evan- 
gelical Denominations, the Home Missions Council, the 
Foreign Missions Conference, the Council of Church Boards 
of Education are examples of this. No one would be so 
rash as to say that this association of practical tasks may 
not result in the actual union of some of the denominations, 
for there are many w^hose origin and tradition are sub- 
stantially the same. The Methodist Episcopal Church has 
been ready to take up the question of such unions, when- 
ever the time seemed ripe. It is zealously working toward 
a harmonious reunion with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. But it has ever been more eager to move forward 
in the vast task of evangelizing the world than to linger 
by the way, discussing differences between denominations 
over issues which it has regarded as not vital to that im- 
perative task. 

I 



METHODISM AND THE WORLD CHURCH 163 



Tlie mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

For that task its place among the churches of the world is 
noteworthy. It is the largest Protestant denomination in 
America, and the largest Protestant free church (that is, 
not ''established" by the law of a country) in the world. 
It numbers over four million members. Its organized local 
churches are found in forty-three countries. The great 
number of its American membership and its world-wide 
character are but the providential provisions for its mis- 
sion. Not only among the denominations of England and 
the United States but among all groups of Christians the 
world around, it must stand as a never-failing, high-spirited 
witness to the truth that the love of God in the heart 
through Christ genuinely and completely transforms the 
lives of men, whatever may be thought of polity or sacra- 
mental theory or detail of creed, and that therein full and 
sufficient salvation comes to mankind. It is this testimony 
that the Methodist Episcopal Church has to make as its 
outstanding contribution to the world church, which is 
vital both to the uniting of Christianity and to the saving 
of the world. The degree to which the Methodist Episcopal 
Church will be able to make this contribution will depend 
upon the degree to which every member of it is possessed 
of that truth and demonstrates it in his life. 

The great importance of— you. It is just here that the 
spirit and skill of **the worker" for whom this book is 
written are of great importance to "his church." Except 
in mission lands and a few home mission frontiers the 
conditions of Wesley's day and of Asbury's day have 
changed. The settled character of life in city and town, 
the large membership of the churches, the rise of national 
and community problems involving great moral issues — 
such as industrial conditions and international relations — 
all require methods of work different from those which 
were needed in their day. It is now not so necessary for 
the preachers to move swiftly among unshepherded com- 
munities, bringing the energizing message of the gospel 



164 



THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



and gathering into societies those who were the first-fruits 
of popular revivals. The present task of the preacher and 
the Christian worker is to make each and every one of those 
societies, now become local churches, powerful centers of 
Christian influence in their communities and in the world. 
They must — as always — be forever seeking, through the 
messages of public meetings and through tactful, personal 
influence to bring the unsaved to the knowledge of the re- 
deeming love of God. Evangelism is as imperative a neces- 
sity as ever, though the form of its methods may change. But 
the preacher and the worker must also be helping all the 
members and all the children of the church to increasing 
knowledge of the Bible, of the life of the Christian Church, 
of the needs of the nation and of the world for the trans- 
forming power of Christ. 

Nor is knowledge enough. Every member of the church 
must become skillful in making the daily task in oflftce, in 
home, in shop a means of building up the kingdom of God 
and of revealing to his fellow workers the joy and strength 
of the Christian life. It is through the spirit and the skill 
of the individual member that the church becomes a power 
for righteousness in any community, as small as a village 
or as large as the world. The bitter issues between capital 
and labor, the fight for clean government in town and 
State, the war-breeding controversies between nations, can 
only be settled rightly as the spirit of Christ controls the 
wills of capitalists, and laboring men, of politicians, and 
public oflacials and statesmen — and of plain citizens like 
ourselves. To lead such men and women to Christ and to 
apply his teachings and his spirit to these issues will re- 
quire all the skill and all the understanding of Jesus that 
the worker can secure. 

The opportunities of the worker. What, then, are the 
things which the worker in the church and Sunday school 
should do for the success of his church? First, let him 
know his church, its officers and leaders and the agencies 
through which it reaches out at home and abroad to pro- 



METHODISM AND THE WORLD CHURCH 165 



mote God's kingdom among men. Let him see that each 
week the religious journals of the church bring him the 
news of its activities and their messages on questions of 
the day. Being a worker, he is already actively devoting 
himself to the church's service. Let him increase that 
service by making it more effective. For that purpose 
training courses, such as the one of which this book is a 
part, are available on many phases of church work. In his 
search for skill, others may be drawn in and his earnestness 
may be multiplied in other recruits for service. 

The heart of the matter. Finally, he will be wanting 
to get ever closer to the heart of the matter, to be **enjoy- 
ing religion." Here, again, there are courses of study 
to guide him in his thoughtful reading of the Bible or 
his reflections on prayer, on service, on worship, on God's 
plan for mankind. More than all else he will want to know 
better his and his church's Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. 
Here courses and books are indeed helpful. To fail to use 
them is to neglect a genuine means of grace. But they 
alone can take one only a little way. The know^ledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ comes only to those 
who commit themselves solely to him and steadfastly learn 
of him by doing his will daily. '*If any man would come 
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and 
follow me." That is the Master's condition; that is the 
only way. 

Yet there have been thousands upon thousands who have 
taken this way and continued in it with rejoicing, finding 
each day more glorious than the preceding. God grant 
that each worker who studies this little book will gain 
knowledge and add to his knowledge skill, and to his skill 
that necessary, but amazing consciousness of the presence 
of Christ in every hour of life which alone can establish 
his work for him upon that foundation which is sure. 
Then, indeed, he may hear, again and again, ''Well done, 
good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of 
thy Lord." 



166 THE WORKER AND HIS CHURCH 



Questions for Thought and Discussion 

1. Glance over tlie earlier pages of this book and refresh 
your mind as to the place of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the history of Christianity and in relation to 
present world conditions. 

2. State in your own words the attitude of the church 
toward other denominations and toward the question of 
unity with these. 

3. What is the chief duty of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church? How can your local church do its share of this 
duty in its own community? How can it help the church 
as a whole to fulfill this responsibility? 

4. What is the place of the Christian worker in the life 
of the church? What are some of the opportunities for 
service which you have. 

5. What is the chief need of every Christian worker? 
How can that need be met? 



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